While Most Run Popularity Contests, Ron Paul Speaks Liberty From The Heart

embed this tweet
By Don White
January 1, 2012
When Governor Mitt Romney challenged his opponent Texas Governor Rick Perry to a bet of $10,000 to once and for all prove Romney did not support an individual health care mandate, he lost a lot more than the heart and soul of Iowa conservative voters.

Patrick Henry

We all thought Romney may have ruined his chances for winning the Iowa Caucus, but no. These are some of the most forgiving souls alive, because despite the bad press Romney got among Evangelicals and among his own Latter-day Saint faithful, both of which who condemn betting and gambling of any kind, this former governor from Massachusetts seems to be flying high.

The hint that a prospective leader who himself spent two or more years preaching the gospel in France and headed a parish as an older family man and is familiar with the evils of gambling--though he has successfully argued this was not an offer to gamble, just a debate ploy-- must be a big turnoff for millions of voters across the nation. As it turns out, he leads in Iowa polls, but barely--by just a couple of points in a race that could go either way.

His blatant act of attempting, or appearing to look like he was attempting, to bet ten grand on national TV branded this multimillionaire as immature and insensitive to millions of unemployed who may not make much more than that in a year in Iowa and across the country. It raised so many eyebrows that at the time the poll leader Newt Gingrich got a political bump out of it and so did ultra-conservative Dr. Ron Paul.

The flack has now calmed down, but I'm still wondering where his mind was when he pulled out this unfortunate debating "trick." What was Romney thinking? Has his pride waved goodbye to his good judgment or brainpower?

It leads many to wonder if this charismatic rich man is right for the presidency and whether the GOP presidential campaign has become a spending contest and a popularity pageant and nothing more. One has to wonder why a man like Romney runs for the White House. Does he have a genuine desire to help poor people, or is it his hubris he wants to feed? Romney is now in his late sixties and doesn't need another feather in his cap to enjoy life with his wife of 42 years and  a great family of six boys and sixteen grandchildren.

But really and unfortunately, the race for the U.S. presidency has become a popularity contest and nothing more. Issues are perverted and  lied about, pride is palpable, and accomplishment is often stretched to the limit. Take Congresswoman Michelle Backman, for example. She has lied about so many things that it would be hard to count them all. This one personality defect renders her and most of the field ineligible for leadership on a national scale. Of course, compared to Clinton, Bush and Obama they may seem like saints.

When you look at those who have successfully run and become president, it wasn't their high moral behavior or inability to tell a lie that got them there. It was money, and the twisting of the arms of allies and people in power positions, people with axes to grind themselves. Wall Street and Big Bankers. These candidates, excepting one, are all beholden to the devil embodied in big banking interests.

That one man is Ron Paul. He alone, it seems, does not rely on self aggrandizement. Congressman Ron Paul,  most closely resembles Patriot Patrick Henry or freedom historian-writer- ideologue Thomas Payne than any of the field.

The Patriot Update tells about Patrick Henry. All of it rings true for Ron Paul who, alone, opposes big government spending, more trillion-dollar wars--or aggressive wars of any kind--and promises to save a trillion dollars his first year in office, bring the troops home (all of them), balance the budget in three years, and stop pandering to foreign nations in the form of foreign aid.

______________________________________________________________________

Patriot Update: Patrick Henry, one of my favorite Founding Fathers because of his honesty, passion, and sheer devotion to the exercise and protection of fundamental liberty, opposed the US Constitution openly and aggressively.  He was concerned about the consolidation of federal authority and especially the power concentrated in the office of the President.  A particular concern was the President’s authority and command over the armed forces.  Henry predicted that a president could use the military “to run roughshod over the republic.”  (Lincoln and the Civil War!!)  He was highly skeptical of the broad taxing power delegated to the Congress.  He believed the Constitution allowed the government to control the governed, with little ability and no obligation to control itself.  And he argued that the Constitution effectively ignored the essential role of the States.

Furthermore, Henry always wondered whether Americans had the moral fiber to safeguard the freedom secured by the American Revolution. By 1776, he saw a moral depravity that concerned him, and he believed it would eventually set the stage for tyranny.  The delegates of the Constitutional Convention, he argued, foolishly assumed that all politicians would be virtuous men.  He criticized many of the Founders and drafters, Christian republicans as they were, for not realizing that this assumption was a fatal flaw.

“Nothing could check a national government entrusted with vast military might and the unlimited authority to tax……  Our human rights and privileges are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this Constitution,” he wrote.  What he meant by this, as he often stated, was that the Constitution represented an outright repudiation of the American Revolution.

As an alternative to all the States ratifying and binding themselves to document that he believed would destroy liberty and ultimately establish a tyrannical government, Patrick Henry proposed that States establish sectional confederacies (multiple republics).  He further supported this approach because it was his firm belief that the Constitution would give special treatment to Northern states over Southern states and the latter would forever be prejudiced in representation and legislation.  Another little known fact is that Henry proposed secession in 1781, certainly for Virginia, and for other states as well.

In opposing the Constitution and its ratification, Patrick Henry believed he was defending the ideals of the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.  He argued that America had just fought for their independence from an abusive political regime (the British monarchy and Parliament) and now Madison and Hamilton were intending to put the newly-free nation back under a strong central government, with a strong executive.  He argued that we were trading one tyrant for another.  To Henry, this was a repudiation of all the liberties that he and the other patriots had fought for.  As he explained: “A monstrous national government was not the solution….  Many had to die to be free from such a regime.”

In an opening speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1781, Henry pleaded: “A wrong step now will plunge us into misery and our republic will be lost.”  In one of his very last public speeches, given at the same Convention, he delivered this heartfelt message: “Liberty is the greatest of all earthly blessings. Give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else.  There was a time when every pulse of my heart beat for American liberty and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American.  But suspicions have gone forth publicly – suspicions of my integrity – that my professions are not real.  23 years ago, I was supposed a traitor to my country.  I was then said to be a bane of sedition because I supported the rights of my countrymen.  I may be thought suspicious when I say that our privileges and rights are in danger.  But, Sir, a number of people of this country are weak enough to think these things are true….   My great objection to this (new) government is that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights.”

http://bit.ly/tjGsUc