Ron Paul

I see in my server logs that about 15% of my traffic is from the United States, so I figured I would plug Ron Paul here as I believe the message is well worth repeating at any opportunity I get.

Below is a mail I sent out a few months ago to everyone relevant that I could think of, letting them know about a candidate running for US president in 2012 called Ron Paul. Until I came across him I never cared about politics, and I'm not American, but the prospect of a president like this seems like such a positive thing I just couldn't stay quiet about it.

Now today, I saw many US 'news' media outlets again shunning Ron Paul in spite of his very good showing at the Ames straw poll. This got my ire up and I decided I would use my site to spread some info. Yeah I know it's off-topic, but if those disgraceful excuses for news channels had done their job properly I wouldn't feel like I need to make up for anything huh. Watch this biting criticism from Jon Stewart to see what I mean: Jon Stewart disses 'news' media for biased Ron Paul blackout


Here's my original mail... too lazy to edit :)
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You are receiving this either because you are an American citizen yourself, or I figure you know someone who is. Two days ago Ron Paul confirmed he will run for the president of the United States in 2012. If you can already answer the question 'Who is Ron Paul?', just skip to the last paragraph.

Like many people I never paid any attention to politics, but a few years ago I happened to catch part of a debate between some of the presidential candidates. One of the candidates stood out so much with his common sense and honesty that I found myself following his campaign in detail for the next 18 months, learning more than I ever wanted to know about U.S. elections and government. This was Ron Paul, originally a medical doctor and air-force flight surgeon, now a congressman from Texas.

When I looked into this guy a bit more, I was impressed with his integrity and consistency over past decades. He states truth quite plainly regardless of whether it will upset the 'establishment' or the status quo, and seems impervious to lobbying or otherwise being bought off. Contrary to what we're often accustomed to with politicians, he doesn't sidestep questions and provides intelligent reasons to explain and back up his positions. Somehow he has remained remarkably humble and seems, to me at least, motivated by a simple love for his fellow human-kind.

As for policies Ron Paul is a strong supporter of, and has a voting record in the congress which is 100% in line with the U.S. constitution. That constitution is probably the best example of safeguarding the people's liberty and prosperity that the world has seen, put into place by some very smart people way back in 1776 and worked extremely well for a long time. But Paul argues that today the federal government is taking upon itself many activities which are not authorized in the constitution and that many of these are detrimental to the people. In particular he takes issue with: preemptive undeclared wars, meddling in the affairs of other countries and the stationing of armies abroad, that spreading democracy/freedom should be done by example not force, the ineffectual 'war on drugs', the patriot act and the decline of personal freedoms it entails, inflation aka decline of purchasing power of the currency (today US$1 will only buy what 2 cents could in 1913), and of course the national debt problem.

Take a look on youtube and you will find many interviews, debate appearances, speeches etc to give you an idea of Paul's stand on all kinds of issues. A good interview which covers many topics is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJz81lAwY0M Or if your attention span is shorter, you might prefer the fan created mashup of various video clips, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG_HuFtP8w8 Just search around, there is no shortage of support for Ron Paul on the internet. Some of it might be a little dated, like my first link above but that shouldn't matter, this guy has been saying the same things like a broken record for the last 30 years, check it out if you can find some early 1980's stuff.

So why am I telling you? Well obviously Paul didn't make it to the presidency last time. Although he gained a great deal of support during the last campaign (often from previously uninterested people like myself) the 'mainstream media' seemed reluctant to give him equal attention. Despite this, somehow grassroots support for Paul kept growing and growing - no thanks to me. After the elections I was kicking myself when reading comments on blogs, news articles and youtube where people said they would have voted for Paul if they had know about him. As a New Zealander unfortunately I can't affect anything directly, but after noting how important word-of-mouth can be in the face of media bias, and also realising how people like myself who didn't care about any of this stuff can 'wake up' given the right situation, I decided this time I should make some more noise. Also, it has not escaped my attention that often policies adopted by the U.S. make their way to N.Z. sometime later - it would be nice to have a genuine 'land of the free' as an influence instead of a crumbling police state.

Why now, when the presidential election is still 18 months away in November 2012? Since Ron Paul is a member of the republican party, first he has to win the nomination of the party to be their candidate for president. This is decided by elections and caucuses known as 'primaries' within the party, starting as early as February 2012. I believe that if Paul gets the nomination, he will easily stomp all over Obama or whoever is nominated by the democratic party, so the important thing is the nomination itself.

So I'm asking you to take a look at this Ron Paul guy, then at least you know what's out there and you can make informed decisions. If you're like me and can only be a spectator in this show, forward this to people you know who are either an American citizen or who know one. At the very least, you should find it intriguing to have a Kiwi bugging you about this! Thanks.