"Ron Paul Supporters are a Scourge on the Republican Party"

From the Washington Times, Communities, Eric Golub writes...

"It is time to stop coddling the screaming children and just say it: Ron Paul supporters are a scourge that could hurt the effort to stop President Obama's relection[sic]. 

 ...

"Dr. Paul and his supporters are a scourge on the Republican Party because they are not Republicans. They are trying to remake the party completely in Dr. Paul’s image and have trouble accepting that 90-95% of the party feel it is fine just the way it is.

 ...

"If Ron Paul supporters will vote for Ron Paul and nobody else, then get lost. Nobody needs you. Your candidate is the fringe, and you remain a scourge."

First, let me just say that I have no clue who 'Eric Golub' is. It doesn't really matter who he is (or isn't) - but in this instance, Eric is the mouthpiece that represents the current establishment / prominent Republican mentality. I've been hearing these kinds of statements a lot recently from many other talking heads on the mainstream media -- and I feel it needs to be addressed and settled, once and for all.

Eric is saying that RP supporters should essentially 'get in line' and vote for the Republican nominee, regardless of who it is -- or 'stay away' if we don't. Oh yeah - and uh, he says that we are 'a scourge'.

He also misrepresents Ron Paul supporters and makes quite a few hasty generalizations about us and things we say. I've met very, very few RP supporters who are as vacuous and inane as Eric here tries to make us out to be. In fact, RP supporters are some of the most informed activists out there who understand a wide range of topics - from the Constitution, to economics, to history (both American and World), and of course the process of utilizing Aristotelian methods of discourse to arrive at truth and justice.

Eric continues by making inane personal attacks on Ron Paul (he says, 'one leader with funny ears and a defeatist foreign policy is enough') in the article, as well as his absurd claim that '90-95%' of the Republican party think that it is 'fine the way it is'. Unfortunately for Eric, this opinion is completely divorced from reality. Clearly he's never heard of the Tea Party (which was originally started by Ron Paul supporters and their epic $6+ million single-day donation moneybomb at Faneuil Hall here in Boston, MA).

He wants us to settle for anyone who is nominated for the Republican Party. He wants us to compromise on our principles. But it is this easy readiness to compromise that has led us down this path in the first place. 

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube...

When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil." - Ayn Rand

We're done with the compromisers. We're done with the knaves, the scoundrels and the trolls that Ayn Rand is speaking of who have brought us to the edge of financial destruction and the loss of our liberties.

To me, none of these empty suits that Eric wants us to support will do much different than Bush or Obama has done anyways. They have little to no consistent principles about individual liberty or free markets. Much of their rhetoric and absolutely all of the other candidates' political histories show this to be the case. They are concerned only with their own power and egos - at our expense. Ron Paul has demonstrated no such desires - and his voting record illustrates this.

If Ron Paul does not win the republican nomination (and it must be noted that his support is steadily growing, as another article stated, 'like a ratchet'), then I hope RP runs third party or 'independent' and wins - or at the very least causes a major disruption for either or both parties, which ultimately are not much different. If he doesn't win... then who knows - it may inspire a significant third party growth, especially with independents being the largest political affiliation in the US now.

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Adams

If it comes down to it, then I (and pretty much all RP supporters) will simply protest vote - and I don't care if it gets Obama re-elected, because any of your other political trolls will merely continue the same destructive and corrupt trash we've seen for years anyways, if not decades.

In the end, it's clear that this troll and others like him who have such a disdain for RP supporters have become genuinely threatened by the influence of RP and his support base. Good. Let them flail about as they witness their own inevitable irrelevance... it is truly a sight to behold.

Our loyalty is not to your view of what the Republican party allegedly 'is' or 'should be'. Our loyalty is to the principles of free markets, individual liberty, responsibility, as local government as possible, and the Constitution. These used to be things the Republican party stood for, long ago. We represent the original Republican party - that of Barry Goldwater and 'Mr. Republican' Robert Taft. So you have it backwards, Eric. In actuality, it is you and your ilk who are the true scourge and blight upon the Republican Party - not us Ron Paul supporters.

So guess what, trolls? We're not going home. We're a fact of life now for the GOP. Get used to it. You lunatics have done enough damage, and we're here to put a stop to it. If you ever want to win another election, you'd better get on board, because if you don't, we're going to make your lives very, very difficult. 


This post was originally published under my old pseudonym, 'Sentient Void', at the Ron Paul Forums Blog, on 11-23-2011.

Why Even Anarchists Should Vote... at Least as a Matter of Self-Defense

Every election cycle, the anti-voting anarchists and libertarians wind up the same old memes and quotes to discourage as many people from voting as possible, seeking a kind of absolution in their forced relationship with the State. However, this rationale is confused and short-sighted, ultimately supporting the democratic theorists' position while making their greatest adversaries' jobs easier than ever for them.

On this, even the patron saints of deontological individualist anarchism Lysander Spooner and Murray Rothbard groan at the rationale of the non-voting anarchist population:

"In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself." -- Lysander Spooner, 'No Treason'

 ...

"Many anarchist libertarians claim it immoral to vote or to engage in political action--the argument being that by participating in this way in State activity, the libertarian places his moral imprimatur upon the State apparatus itself. But a moral decision must be a free decision, and the State has placed individuals in society in an unfree environment, in a general matrix of coercion. As Lysander Spooner pointed out, in an environment of State coercion, voting does not imply voluntary consent." -- Murray Rothbard, 'Ethics of Liberty'

... 

"I'm interested to talk about that. This is the classical anarchist position, there is no doubt about that. The classical anarchist position is that nobody should vote, because if you vote you are participating in a state apparatus. Or if you do vote you should write in your own name, I don't think that there is anything wrong with this tactic in the sense that if there really were a nationwide movement – if five million people, let's say, pledged not to vote. I think it would be very useful. On the other hand, I don't think voting is a real problem. I don't think it's immoral to vote, in contrast to the anti-voting people. 

Lysander Spooner, the patron saint of individualist anarchism, had a very effective attack on this idea. The thing is, if you really believe that by voting you are giving your sanction to the state, then you see you are really adopting the democratic theorist's position. You would be adopting the position of the democratic enemy, so to speak, who says that the state is really voluntary because the masses are supporting it by participating in elections. In other words, you're really the other side of the coin of supporting the policy of democracy – that the public is really behind it and that it is all voluntary. And so the anti-voting people are really saying the same thing.

I don't think this is true, because as Spooner said, people are being placed in a coercive position. They are surrounded by a coercive system; they are surrounded by the state. The state, however, allows you a limited choice – there's no question about the fact that the choice is limited. Since you are in this coercive situation, there is no reason why you shouldn't try to make use of it if you think it will make a difference to your liberty or possessions. So by voting you can't say that this is a moral choice, a fully voluntary choice, on the part of the public. It's not a fully voluntary situation. It's a situation where you are surrounded by the whole state which you can't vote out of existence. For example, we can't vote the Presidency out of existence – unfortunately, it would be great if we could – but since we can't why not make use of the vote if there is a difference at all between the two people. And it is almost inevitable that there will be a difference, incidentally, because just praxeologically or in a natural law sense, every two persons or every two groups of people will be slightly different, at least. So in that case why not make use of it. I don't see that it's immoral to participate in the election provided that you go into it with your eyes open – provided that you don't think that either Nixon or Muskie is the greatest libertarian since Richard Cobden! – which many people, of course, talk themselves into before they go out and vote. 

The second part of my answer is that I don't think that voting is really the question. I really don't care about whether people vote or not. To me the important thing is, who do you support. Who do you hope will win the election? You can be a non-voter and say "I don't want to sanction the state" and not vote, but on election night who do you hope the rest of the voters, the rest of the suckers out there who are voting, who do you hope they'll elect. And it's important, because I think that there is a difference. The Presidency, unfortunately, is of extreme importance. It will be running or directing our lives greatly for four years. So, I see no reason why we shouldn't endorse, or support, or attack one candidate more than the other candidate. I really don't agree at all with the non-voting position in that sense, because the non-voter is not only saying we shouldn't vote: he is also saying that we shouldn't endorse anybody. Will Robert LeFevre, one of the spokesmen of the non-voting approach, will he deep in his heart on election night have any kind of preference at all as the votes come in. Will he cheer slightly or groan more as whoever wins? I don't see how anybody could fail to have a preference, because it will affect all of us." -- Murray Rothbard

This much is clear -- Rothbard and Spooner both recognized that the question of whether you 'should vote' or not is very similar to the question as to whether you 'should defend yourself' from attack. Both saw that there is a war waged against your liberty, and it is under attack by those who wish to take it away from you via the ballot box. It's as if there are two sides of line infantry standing mere meters across from eachother -- with each shot fired being a guaranteed kill against the other side. One side is always attacking with the other side always defending -- as neglected and crumbling as it is -- the vestiges of whatever institutionalized liberty is left. Each vote is a bullet, and if the attackers overwhelm the defenders, then, whether you voted or not, another piece of your liberty will, in fact, be destroyed, and the attackers get that much more powerful. Liberty is a fragile thing, and all it takes is one bullet-vote to get past the defenders for it to be taken out, once again.

Shots have been fired and exercising your vote is firing a shot back.

I would, of course, never claim that libertarians and anarchists not voting is 'the problem'. There are a lot of problems, beginning with our values and culture and stretching all the way up to the law and the nature of the State. Solving these problems does not start and end at voting, but if libertarians of all stripes actually, regularly voted, then it would certainly help in stemming the unrelenting tide of assault against our liberty.

Just don't go in expecting that voting, by itself, is enough in the pursuit of liberty. 

At the end of the day, you will be oppressed by a president and his government. His vision of morality will be brought to bear on you under the machine of the State, whether you like it or not, regardless of your values -- so you might as well honestly reflect on who you prefer, and thus vote for someone who will limit the oppression you will have to deal with and/or maximize as much individual liberty in your life as much as possible. At the very least, even to the extent liberty may not be increased at all with someone voted into office, this can still help in keeping the authoritarian, collectivist hordes at bay and minimizing the damage they can and want to do, in the meantime -- like throwing a wrench in that vast machine that's been created to slowly grind up your liberty.

Sisyphus (by Titian, 1549) and his Revolt Against all Hope.

Sisyphus (by Titian, 1549) and his Revolt Against all Hope.