You see his name strung out on banners on freeway overpasses, riding along on bumper stickers and popping out on signs around campus.He is Ron Paul … the grassroots, pro-constitution, anti-war, fiscally conservative candidate so loved by his supporters and yet so ignored by the mainstream.
Ron Paul is what’s happening out on the margins while the mainstream candidates are standing on their soapboxes offering the same rhetoric that every kind of political candidate has every said. The campaign he’s running is a subtle, yet enlightened call for revolution.
As a strict believer in the literal interpretation of the Constitution, Ron Paul is the epitome of the kind of presidential candidate a nation that prides itself on personal freedom and self-enrichment needs. Like our founding fathers, he understands that freedom is an ideal that must run across every aspect of life, from the economic freedom granted to us by the elimination of income taxes, to the personal freedoms granted to us by a non-interventionist government.
So why is that America blindly turns away from a candidate that openly offers the very revolutionary principles that our country was built upon? Why do we, in a year so ripe for revolution, continue to fall back on the candidates that are willing to sacrifice such a large portion of our personal freedoms?
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as all good Democrats should, will keep pounding their fists in the air, talking about change, civil liberties, equality and world peace. And as a freedom-loving American, I want to pound my fist in the air, too, and shout “Yes, yes!” until I realize that these are just bullet-points on a party platform.
And, John McCain will, as every good Republican should, speak passionately about economic growth, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility. And again, as a devout believer in free-market capitalism and laissez-faire economics, I’ll nod my head excitedly, only to later realize again, that his words don’t even begin to acknowledge the dire need for true economic reform that the country needs.
Ironically, what makes Ron Paul such a fresh, revolutionary candidate is the fact this his ideas are far from new. Dr. Paul continues to try and make the rest of us understand that America is not in need of a new moral compass, but that we just need to start using the one already ingrained in the fabric of our constitution.
Ron Paul understands that abolishing the IRS is as intrinsically tied to equal marriage as laissez-faire economics is tied to personal freedom. These are the values that America was founded upon when the writers of the Declaration of Independence wrote, that each man has the inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Or as Dr. Paul himself would say, “The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people..”
I personally don’t have a Ron Paul bumper sticker (yet), but I do have access to this great blog. For those that are in the dark about the Ron Paul Revolution, I’ll continue posting interesting and thoughtful posts relating to his issues here a few times a week, starting now.
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