Liberty MavenRon Paul, The Line Between Conspiracy And Crazy
August 2nd, 2008 8:35 am | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Activism, Election, Liberty, Maven Commentary, Philosophy, Politics, Ron Paul | 4 Comments
Over the past year the main stream media and the neo-conservative public has efforted a highly successful smear campaign against Ron Paul and his supporters. They marginalized him by not giving him equal air time, but the largest marginalization tactic occurred when Paul became associated with “those crazy conspiracy theorists”, especially those who believe 9-11 was an inside job. The truth is, Ron Paul has been a moderate voice within the conspiracy realm. He is the line between conspiracy and crazy.
Some equate “conspiracy” with “crazy”. This is a large mistake, but so was making “axe” an official pronunciation of “ask” in the dictionary. Conspiracy theories are just as valid as any pundit’s opinion yammered on CNN or FOX News. There is a line when a conspiracy theory belongs in the insane asylum, though. There are Ron Paul supporters who belong in the asylum. I know because I’ve met and spoken with them. I’ve cheered along with them at rallies. I’ve received emails from them. They are by far in the minority. The majority of the Ron Paul faithful are extremely intelligent and witty. They are active and enlightened people who care greatly about America. I’m proud to know the crazy minority just as much as the moderate majority. Both have a place and purpose.
There have been many monumental arguments between “truther” and what I call “moderate” Ron Paul supporters. Let me be clear, I don’t consider the “truthers” to be in the category of crazy I mentioned above. Although, they are certainly closer to that side than the moderates. The moderates accuse the truthers of poisoning the Ron Paul movement with their crazy fabricated conspiracy theories. The truthers accuse the moderates of not really believing in “freedom”. Ultimately, both sides have valid points, but the fights rage onward incessantly and nothing constructive gets accomplished.
The beauty of Ron Paul is that he himself is right in the middle of these two factions. He is the dividing line and rallying point. What will be most interesting is how his rally in Minneapolis will play out. Will it be like the previous two rallies in DC where speakers on the stage openly marched down “conspiracy” street? Or will it be more moderate and focused on the main stream Republican politics of Ron Paul? Judging from the speaker list it seems it will be the latter. Being in the moderate camp myself, I certainly hope so. But then again there is always room for a little magic bullet theory, moon walk hoax, and 9-11 truth among friends in liberty.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:44 pm (#)
The fact that our government is controlled by corporations and NGOs and not the people via the congress is no longer a ‘conspiracy’. It is well known, and you can thank McCain for this, that the two parties are controlled by the same people thus we have a puppet government. McCain is basically going to continue the same policies as Obama would..there is only a PERCEPTION of difference that is created so we can fight amongst ourselves and not see what is really going on.
This has been admittedly the strategy in one document after another, since the era of Stalin himself!
I was skeptical about false flag events but I have known since I first saw the Murrah building at 9:15 AM that morning that it was blown up by bombs placed inside, not some fertiliser in a truck and that certain of our ‘government’ controllers are very capable of doing such things.
At the time the Murrah incident was used to discredit the patriot movement by connecting them to supposedly violent ‘militias’. I believe it was a concerted effort by the SPLC and government entities.
I am starting to rethink the WTC myself, because there is just no excuse for Blg 7 to have fallen, NONE.
Now we are starting to see proof.
The Liberty or Patriot or Revolutionary movement, whatever you choose to call it, is NOT going away anytime soon. The media knows it and that’s why they stifled all press on the 10,000 man march on July 12th. They are totally scared because this NAU thing is NOT going anywhere if we can help it.
More and more people are becoming educated to the fact that corporations like the Fed Reserve are controlling us and they don’t like it.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm (#)
Please, Truthers. Leave your “9/11 inside job” signs at home! Don’t embarrass Dr. Paul at the alernative Convention. He doesn’t want you around if you’re going to be associating him with that insanity.
http://www.PaulitesAgainstTruthers.com
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:19 pm (#)
Marc: I have to laugh at much of your observations–and note that you let the secret of Dr Paul’s failure out into the open. “Neo Conservative Public” Oh, sure–this is as far wrong as the allegations that Leo Strauss was the father of the neocons. That Dr Paul was marginalized because he wasn’t granted equla air time–at once and the same time, you ignore the best tactic that politicians and others use against their enemies, to ignore them, and then you appeal, implicitly, to a government agency, the FCC, to grant equal air time to Dr Paul. Dr Paul had a lot of money, and indeed, could have put on infomercials much like Ross Perot had done–but some wag noted that Dr Paul was the one candidate with money but who had no clue as to how to use it.
The dirty little secret: the infighting. The infighting between the purists and the moderates–in the Libertarian Party, another third party movement–its between the purists and the pragmatists. The purists in both cases really do not want the candidate to win. In some cases, the purists argue that any elected official becomes part of a corrupt system–so, Dr Paul as President would be corrupted by the system. The moderates or pragmatists usually want the candidate elected, as there can be no repeals of the New Deal programs without Presidents and Congress members who will vote these programs away.
The infighting is proved with the last two comments–
The question is what keeps the Paul camp, as it is composed of more than libertarians, together–is it Dr Paul? Perhsps. But I suggest that it is the issue of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror. If Dr Paul retires from politics, or if those wars fade for whatever reason, the Pauline campaigns will also fade away.
There’s also one last thing about conspiracy theorists or crazies. It doesn’t require that someone advocate a conspiracy theory to be taken as a crzy–there are other simpler ways. One is to advocate anarcho-capitalism, and snother is to campaign on the platform that one is a Druid priest. In the first case, there are many of those at Lew Rockwell, not to mention those who write about how voting is for morons and fellow travelers of the system, or those advocating Southern rights or those advocating a return to the Articles of Confederation. The Druid priest, well, that was the statement of one Libertarian Party candidate who ran for Californai Governor some years ago–the statment was in the Californai Voters Information pamphlet (for the primary election) sent to most voters in Californai–for all to see hoiw crazy the libertarians could be. Of course, that staement was cleaned up for the pamphlet for the general election.
That national radio show, Coast to Coast, will have besides the crazies who advocate the reality of UFOs, crop circles, remote viewing and the rest, also wikll have on the tax resistors, the 9-11 conspiracy advocates and, sorry, but this is why Dr Paul has crossed the line into the crazy place, interviews with Dr Paul. Obama, McCain, and the several members of the Bush administration and those in Congress will not be interviewed on Coast to Coast–they know better, most of them. And when they do appear, as some NASA scientists do from time to time to debunk the crazies on such issues as the face on Mars and secret UFO bases on the moon, the NASA people look quite out of place, surrounded by the UFO advocates. This is also true for any conventional Republican or Democrat–but Dr Paul seems to fit in quite nicely.
Let’s be crystal clear: any candidate who advocates the elimination of the Federal Reserve, Social Security, a return to the gold standard, and the devolution of almost all of the national government’s programs back to the states, or repealed altogether is not a reasoned or rational candidate for most of J Q Public. The purists want to educate the public so that Dr Paul’s stuff may be considered reasonable–but they admit, if pushed, that this education will take a long time, and the prospects of its success are slim to none. The pragmatists simpy think that if Dr Paul or like minded officials are in charge, that the education will be unnecessary as these enlightened representatives will do the right thing–but that requires enough voters to vote them into office–so we are back to the education problem.
Which leads to the craziest of the crazies–the nonsense about the Revolution and how, well, to use an older phrase, Power to the Peoiple, and Revolution Now.
To borrow from a scifi comedy, no, the crazies are not dangerous or have any chance of success–they are just stupid. But then so are the pragmatists and moderates who think that any such set of political principles, so informed by the crazy set, has any chance, that the candidates who sput such things have any chance.
Thomas Jefferson put the cork on this bottle years ago, after the decade of the 1790’s when the anti-Federalists were in full bloom–his comment at his first inauguarl, that we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists, that a difference over policy need not be one over principle–effectively put away the childishness of the anti-Federalists complaints and influence. To use another Paul, the nation, when it was a child, did things and acted like a child–but when it grew uo, it put away childish things.
And we have had the two parties ever since–and while we diod not in 1800 have the situation we have toiday, we had the beginnings of it–the Constitution began as an acorn, and we now have a nearly full grown tree.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:27 am (#)
The conflict between the “purists” and “pragmatic” factions of the LP are as old as the Party itself. I think fundementally, the purists don’t want to succeed - except on their absolutist terms. A couple of (now) humerous examples: The MD LP once backed a candidate for school board who was an avowed male homosexual prostitute. After all, he had the “right” to be a homosexual prostitute. This same local party also ran radio ads affirming their congressional candidate’s unqualified support of the Palestinians - in a predominately Jewish district. Just to make sure no-one voted for the LP by accident I guess.
While I am encouraged by the success of the Paul campaign the “movement” seem to have been taken over by the conspiracy nuts, troothers, etc. While I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, this is death to achieving any serious political result in the real world. If the “purists” maintain control over the Paul campaign’s legacy they will further marginalize whatever positives were acheived.
The LP (for once) made the right choice by nominating Barr. The purists, if they aren’t willing to help, should just leave him alone. I suspect most of the purist Paul types will eventually go back to preparing for the “end days” or join the Constitution Party, or both.