Why do I support Ron Paul?

I know some of my friends think I'm crazy, or just tactfully decide not to respond when I say anything about Dr. Paul. I want you to know why I support his cause of Liberty. I started a change in my life about five years ago. I decided that since I was now a grown-up, it was time to not be so politically apathetic. It was time to find out what all this stuff is about. You know, find out for myself about different candidates and issues before I vote. I had had too many embarrassing moments when I went to vote and discovered there were many people and issues on the ballot that I knew nothing about. I instinctively knew that CNN was not going to give me the information I needed. I wanted to get everything from the horse's mouth. I threw out any preconceived notions about political parties and started from scratch. I searched out different candidates and attended their little parties. I read books. I searched out candidates and read their websites. Almost everything I encountered left me more confused and disappointed. I remember one little "get-to-know-your-candidate" party that left me especially disheartened. I wanted to find out about issues and ideas, but all I got were photos of his pretty family and theoretical talk about alternative energy. Come on, who doesn't want alternative energy? It's not like we all want to continue to pay through the nose for gasoline to run our cars and heat our homes for the rest of our lives. I wanted to hear people talk about real issues. I began to think that there was nobody out there who I would feel good about voting for in elections. I had heard a few great candidates talk, but these were ALWAYS the kind that were running on the independent ticket and would end up with less than 1% of the vote. So I voted for these kind of people, feeling hopeless. But at least I knew that I was running against the herd that was headed in a deadly stampede off the cliff (will I die with them? Yes, but at least I am not part of the problem).

About this time, I picked up a book by Dr. Ron Paul. I had heard his name before, but didn't know anything about him. I liked the sound of the book's title: Revolution. I had come to understand that our nation was in grave circumstances and nothing short of a Revolution would help us. As I read each page, I became more and more excited. Finally, here was someone who was offering something to sink my teeth into! I knew that finally I had found someone with experience (in the medical and political fields) who was honest, intelligent, and who laid it all out in a way that no one could deny. There were no pretty pictures of his family. There was no theoretical talk that would please everyone and answer no questions. This was real. He explained our beloved Constitution and lamented how far we've come from that freedom-protecting document. He talked about wars (he has been there), why we fight, and why lately it's been for all the wrong reasons. He talked about the current mess of health care in this country (he remembers what it was like to practice as a doctor before the government got their fingers twisted up in the system, it was much better back then. And affordable.). He talked about welfare problems, and noted that in freedom-loving societies, we take care of our neighbors without being forced by the government (community charity vs. State programs and foreign aid from the government). He laid out the real issues and offered real solutions in a way that no one could deny.

I also began to study our history, the Constitution, and our founding fathers. History and government were always my worst subjects in school, but I decided to give them a second chance. This opened up a new world for me, and I began to understand more deeply our current problems. I have learned about the false notion of "liberal vs. conservative". This never made sense to me, and now I know why. The only real scale is "freedom vs. tyranny". When thinking about an issue, you need to ask yourself if this is something that gives me freedom, or does it take my freedoms away. Freedom works. This is a phrase oft repeated by Ron Paul. An example of freedom working can be found in the first settlers of the American colonies. The settlers at Jamestown started out with a socialist society (no private ownership of land, everybody shares what they have). The idea behind this was easy to understand. This was a new land, things would be hard, and they needed to help each other to survive. The results were catastrophic and many people died. Able-bodied men refused to work because they were tired of all their hard work benefiting those who didn't work. The problem spiraled worse and worse until one of their leaders threw up his hands in disgust and gave up. He assigned each family their own land and told them they were on their own. He fully expected the lazy bums to lay down and die, but the whole colony changed overnight. Instead of spending all his time yelling and reprimanding lazy people to get busy, he watched in amazement as everybody whipped themselves into shape and worked harder than they had ever done before. The colony flourished. Freedom worked.

I support Dr. Paul because he is a candidate who supports freedom and the Constitution. Yes, there have been other candidates like him in the past, but this is someone who is running on the Republican ticket and actually has a chance to get more than 1% of the vote. This is very exciting for me to see, but also sickening to see how the mass media blacks him out (they don't have something mean to say about him, so they say nothing at all). Sickening to see how people close their eyes to the real issues and continue to vote for the candidate that is the most vague and has the prettiest family photos. Am I still running against the herd? Yes, but this time there are a lot of people running with me, and that part is exciting.