Ron Paul And Victory In November With Mary Ruwart
Originally posted on Liberty For All by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
The
candidacy of Wayne Allyn Root is yet another in a long line of attempts to use Libertarianism for purposes having nothing
to do with the philosophy of freedom. What does he hope to gain? Notoriety to feed his gambling ventures? A well-burnished
ego? Does it matter?
His candidacy has reached depths previously unplumbed. Normally, ambitious and well-heeled
wanna-be presidential candidates confine themselves to meaningless but entertaining flights of oratory. Since these platitudinous
extrusions sell some extra packages we have long tolerated such ego indulgences. And Root followed the usual pattern - until
Indiana. There things changed.
Using as his mouthpiece
Mark Schreiber, a former LP employee whose debts to the LP were eventually written off, Root launched an obviously carefully
planned attack on the most credible candidate opposing him, long time activist Dr. Mary Ruwart. Root stayed away from the
Indiana LP Convention, letting Schreiber do the dirty work for him. At the candidate forum, in the morning session, Schreiber
loudly accused Mary of approving of pedophilia. Mary produced forthwith her book that says otherwise. Later Schreiber blurted
out that it would not have happened if Ruwart had agreed to accept the nomination for vice-president.
An honest moment in a campaign of lies.
It was an attempt at ‘the big lie’ that blew up in their faces. Anyone who
has known Ruwart for very long knows the attack to be a complete slander of her personally and a misrepresentation of Libertarianism.
The tactics of attack within political parties are not new to the LP, but never has the attacker been more plainly exposed.
The entry of Ruwart into the field of candidates provides the opportunity
we have long needed, the opportunity to renew the original purpose for which the LP was founded.
The Libertarian Party was founded to advance the cause of individual freedom in the
aftermath of the destruction of the Goldwater Revolution.
Ron Paul is a classical conservative in the Goldwater mold, a libertarian. Those who today use the word, ‘conservative’
are something very different.
In the mid 60s the
word ‘conservative’ was hijacked through the efforts of people who were then called Rockefeller Republicans. Rockefeller
Republicans were a small cadre of individuals who were using politics to ensure their continued subsidies through military
adventuring by the US and a lock on the sale of gasoline. Their motivations were not ideological but to profit using any means
necessary.
Today we know their replacements as
NeoConservatives.
The Libertarian Party was intended
to create the common ground for freedom between Right and Left, carrying the freedom message to the mainstream of America.
Individual rights were our rallying cry.
For some
of us freedom has been a life-long time issue.
As
Libertarians what matters is making freedom happen. All too often in our movement words have been used to profit individuals
who simply want to make a living in politics. We have accepted words instead of insisting on real change, real revolution.
We need to become far more discerning. Just because someone has money and is willing to support a campaign staff does not
mean they are a Libertarian.
Our movement started
because of the yearning we felt to experience our own freedom back when the specter of the Vietnam War hung over America.
We watched as Richard Nixon instituted Wage and Price Controls. We supported both civil liberties and economic freedoms. We
left the GOP taking our power into our own hands, coming together locally to reach out to others with the message that they
should be free - and settle for nothing less. Then, the freedom movement was local. Then, we did not sell the nomination to
the highest bidder.
After listening to ad nauseum
discussions over the years on various plans for fooling people into accepting freedom it was clear to me by 1988 that freedom
was a condition that most did not understand. Before you can find something you need to know what it is you seek.
Yes, we started a political party. But our intention was never to make
the existence of the LP an end in itself. We never intended to ‘be a presence for the ideas of freedom.’ We intended
to enact freedom using the LP as our tool. The point of having a Libertarian Party was to fulfill the vision that made America
a shining hope for the entire world. That vision still brings tears to our eyes, it remains the goal. We did not come together
to make money, burnish egos, or make deals with politicians by selling the rhetoric and letting them use the ‘brand’
of freedom for their own designs.
Freedom is not
rhetoric, it is the power to own your own life, make your own choices, discover the best in yourself and others. Freedom is
crafting that life with the power God placed in your hands from birth. Freedom is an absolute. It is a whisper in your ear
that says, take your life and live it, own it, make of it the glorious truth that speaks the best within you. The choices
are yours as long as you do no harm. That was our joint intention when the LP was founded. But life happened.
We have taken wrong turns, compromised, sold out and bought in. All
of that and more is true. But we can change direction, renewing our commitment, our party, and taking into our hands the work
that remains to be done.
Root would have you view
a life lived under the control of government as freedom. He is wrong.
Listen carefully to how he truncates the message, distorts what it means to be free. On every issue he plays false
with what it means to live as a Libertarian.
Root
has never understood that war is waged equally against those we bomb and on we who pay for the bombs. He does not feel the
horror of honorable men and women, barely grown, who march off to kill for corporate profits. He sees ‘terrorism’
not for what it is, the newest boogieman used to frightened Americans into acquiescence and silence. Root also has failed
to understand that a free market has never existed because the underlying freedom for each of us to choose has never been
affirmed.
Iraq was not a mistake. It was a crime
carried out by this administration at the behest of and for the benefit of the Bush ‘core constituency.’
The rapacious greed of those who would put our money and lives into
their own pockets kept that from happening. Divided we can be controlled. United we can win through to freedom.
Root and his ilk ignore the fact that until each of us is free of the
limitations imposed on us by statute none of us are free. Laws that limit our rights violate the Constitution and bring moral
bankruptcy. Freedom is the one thing in life you will never have until you give it to everyone.
Root has been critical of Ron Paul, attacking the Congressman of lacking eloquence.
What Root actually means is that Dr. Paul is uncompromising on freedom. Paul’s words and obvious sincerity, not polished
and deceptive delivery, are his strength. Paul simply says what he means and what he has lived.
Such as Root are incapable of understanding that in the cantankerous physician from
Texas we see the essence of Libertarianism lived out through the life of a man who, understanding the principles, exemplifies
the courage of his convictions. It is easy to speak the words of freedom, hard to live those words, transforming them from
words into a consistent record that says, ‘yes’ to freedom in the face of sneers and contempt. Ron Paul has done
that.
Root is a retread of past candidates who
believe that we need a messiah to lead us. Look in the mirror to find the one you should follow. Look into your heart and
mind and say YES to a campaign that delivers the reality of freedom. We hold the power in our own hands to live our own lives
in community with others. That was the original Revolution, that is the essential lesson repeated when the LP was founded
and most recently by the Ron Paul Revolution. Now we can take the Revolution home to America and finish the job we began in
1971.
The Ron Paul record of commitment galvanized
the Ron Paul Revolution. It has created the opportunity of the campaign to come. But Ron will not be on the ballot this November.
We need a candidate who is, like Ron, themselves the message.
Americans are ready for freedom, hungry for it, despite the dangers we face today. And there are dangers and problems
to be overcome. But it can be done.
Freedom brings
no guarantee of anything but the right to seek your own happiness and fulfillment. Freedom promises us nothing - but is everything.
Such as Root sneer at absolutes but freedom is just that, an absolute.
Go to Denver and choose freedom, nominate Mary Ruwart. Renew and affirm the mission we took up in 1971. America is
hungry for hope, ready to be free. This November, if you choose right, our candidate can give Americans what they so desperately
want and need. If victory was ever possible this is the time.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster is the
author of GREED: The NeoConning of America and A Tour of Old Yosemite. The former is a novel about the lives
of the NeoCons with a strong autobiographical component. The latter is a non-fiction book about her father and grandfather.
Melinda is an associate editor for Liberty For All and can be reached at the.melinda@yahoo.com.
Governor Mark Sanford On The Real ID
Article published Apr 14, 2008
REAL ID side effects
April 14,
2008
By Mark Sanford - If I were a betting man, I would wager most people haven't followed the debate on REAL
ID. If you indeed missed it, I would ask you take the time to learn about what I consider the most troubling piece of legislation
I've seen come from Washington since I have been governor.
REAL ID would surreptitiously require all 50 states
to change their driver's licenses to act as de-facto national ID cards. It's outrageous, and not just because it was
a backdoor way of doing something proponents in Washington have never been able to pull off in the past. I say "outrageous"
because REAL ID was never really debated in Congress; because the cost of its implementation is handed down to states and
individuals; and because it is an affront to Americans' privacy concerns.
Let's look more closely at a
few of those concerns:
(1) Steroid use in baseball has now received more congressional attention than has REAL
ID. But national policy changes should be debated, not dictated. This was not the case with REAL ID. It never saw committee
debate in the House or Senate, and passed as nothing more than a rider, an attachment, to a bill devoted to tsunami relief
and military personnel fighting in the Middle East.
(2) The cost of REAL ID, and the national ID card system that
would come with it, would not be borne by the federal government but handed to the states and individuals. So-called unfunded
mandates like these keep the spending trains going in Washington. I find it amazing now that Washington has stacked up $50
trillion in debts, which amount to $450,000 per household, that their idea of keeping those promises rests on handing the
bill to others.
Nobody seems to know how many billions REAL ID will cost taxpayers at the state level. Implausibly,
the Department of Homeland Security has now revised its cost estimate downward from $23 billion to $9.9 billion. But whatever
the number it seems to me that if Washington wants something done, it ought to find a way to pay for it — and make sure
that it can pay for it.
(3) This proposal is one more step away from the Founding Fathers' vision of a limited
federal government. Our greatest homeland security is liberty, and the Founding Fathers believed our greatest threat to liberty
was a central government grown too powerful. Accordingly, they set up checks on federal power by vesting authority at the
individual and state levels.
REAL ID disrupts this delicate balance of power in two ways. First, it turns the
Founders' logic on its head by forcing states to act as agents for the federal government in creating a national ID card
for federal purposes. Needing a REAL ID to board a plane or enter a federal building would also change the balance of power
in something as seemingly insignificant as a visit to a member of Congress.
As a former member of Congress, I
had countless meetings with constituents whose personal details I knew nothing about. Their background was not the issue;
my stand on a given matter was. The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to assemble and petition their government,
with no qualification that says, "Only if you have a REAL ID card." On this, I think it would be best to let the
Founding Fathers' original work stand.
(4) REAL ID will move DMV lines in our state up from 15 minutes to
up to two hours, and those productive hours will not be regained in this lifetime. I suspect a similar phenomenon in DMVs
across the nation.
(5) REAL ID falsely assumes our personal information will be safer in one spot in Washington
rather than housed independently across 50 separate states. In the last couple of years, Washington has exposed the personal
information of as many as 40 million Americans — not to mention the three presidential candidates — to potential
theft.
To err really is human, but if you accept the reality that mistakes do happen and that bad people do hack
into spots they aren't supposed to access — does it really make sense to put all this information into a central
database?
(6) Finally, a host of loopholes would in many ways render this bill an inconvenience and cost to Americans
— not the bad guys it is intended for. These range from REAL ID having no impact in travelers with a foreign passports
to the recent affirmation by the federal government that no form of ID is needed to board a plane.
In short, there
are many faults in this bill that could be sorted were there debate in Washington on REAL ID. I hope you'll join me in
making your voice heard for truly debating this issue, and for pushing for change that would come with that debate.
Mark Sanford, a Republican, is governor of South Carolina.
