Last week, Campaign for Liberty press guy and Ron Paul grandson-in-law Jesse Benton was driving to a constituent event with his boss and the subject of 2012 came up.
“He hasn’t closed out the idea of another run,” said Benton today. “We have some time to decide whether he runs again, or whether he gets behind somebody else. But we don’t have tons of time. By the middle of 2009, the decision needs to be made.”
Interesting. The article also shows Benton’s opinion on a potential Gary Johnson 2012 bid. His argument uses Bob Barr as an example.
I asked about the rumor that former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson might jump into the race (unclear in which party yet). “If he were to decide that he wanted to do that, he’d be a great guy to take the reins. But I don’t think that what Dr. Paul captured was 100 percent transferable to anyone else. I think the Bob Barr campaign assumed that and it didn’t pan out.”
So it looks like we may know within the next six months or so if Ron Paul will be running in 2012.
The New York Times has published their first part of the Ron Paul “answers your questions” interview this morning. One of the questions was regarding running third party or independent after failing to get the GOP nomination. Finally, Dr. Paul explains what Jesse Benton sent us in an email a few days ago.
Q: Even before the primaries, you said you would not run in the general election. Why specifically did you not run?
A: I was running for the Republican nomination, and I would have run in the general if I had won. I had little interest in running third party due to the inherent biases against such efforts. I also signed legally binding agreements not run third party in 2008 if I failed to win the G.O.P. primary. That was the cost for ballot access in several states, 11 total I believe. So even I had wanted to, it would not have been possible to run in the general after I lost the primary.
In another interesting question (That I swear wasn’t submitted by me. Well, truthfully it was.) that Ron Paul sort of “punts” on is about his relationship with Bob Barr.
Q: Did Bob Barr’s failure to appear at your press conference endorsing the third-party vote cause a rift between you and him? Are you still friends with him?
A: That’s old news as far I’m concerned. I’m more interested in focusing on positive things Americans can accomplish moving forward.
He makes a fair point, but he didn’t answer the question. Then again, judging from his answer we can infer the truth. I’m reminded of the age-old axiom, if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, say nothing at all. I doubt there will be any future joint efforts toward liberty between Paul and Barr. Is it getting cold in here or is it just me?
Judging from some of the comments to the interview we still have a long way to go before people get it through their thick skulls that the government is not a substitute for parenting, hand holding, and individual responsibility.
Pat Buchanan argues against the talk of Bretton Woods making a comeback in his latest commentary posted on The American Conservative blog. After going through the history of the 1944 Bretton Woods meeting, he has a few choice words about the potential for Bretton Woods II, which he believes will be a attack on U.S. Sovereignty. He argues that the American people will never let it happen.
Globalists see in this worst of world financial crises since the 1930s what New Dealers saw in the Depression: an opportunity to geometrically augment government power and impose their visions upon mankind.
Barack Obama’s chief of staff appears to entertain such thoughts. Said Rahm Emanuel Sunday, “The crisis we have today is an opportunity to finally deal with what Washington, for years, has kicked down the road.”
Brown and Sarkozy may believe a new era of multilateralism is upon us, in which they will play great roles, as the bad old Bush era of American unilateralism ends. But should Obama begin to cede U.S. sovereignty, he will find himself in the same firestorm that engulfed George W. Bush and John McCain when they sought amnesty for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens.
I agree with Buchanan on this point. Ron Paul has warned of such things for a very long time as most of America feigns blindness to it. When the reality of it hits through one of these global gatherings the people will be blind no more. They will be pissed off and ready to let our new President and his administration know about it.
There is no mistaking those faithful activist followers of Ron Paul with the general drooling masses swayed into true belief in the boundless ability of the American presidency. It even filters down to presidential candidates. Myths become reality and contradictions are ignored. The Ron Paul zealots, even the conspiracists among them, deserve more credibility than those that believe in the magically deliciousness of Barack Obama. At least they pay attention beyond the main stream media soundbites. You don’t have to think very hard to realize that John McCain is just an old establishment hack politician. His claim of being a “maverick” is as credible as his claim of believing in the United States Constitution.
Yet the masses are moved into worshipping these men because they sought out the position of “leader of the free world.” The truth is the job of American President in this modern age is doomed no matter who sits on the Oval Office throne. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time, “The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power“, explores the slow development of the presidency from its humble beginnings to its godlike stature today.
The reality is that the more we expect from our President the less he is capable of delivering. This is especially true during economically calamitous times such as these. The book is a timeline of the American presidency put through the limited government microscope of author Gene Healy (CATO Institute). He celebrates the “boring” presidents like Harding and Coolidge. He hammers on the generally more popular and active presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR.
One of Liberty Maven’s (soon-to-be) Liberty Heroes, Thomas DiLorenzo, was interviewed by columnist Ilana Mercer. DiLorenzo, who recently wrote Hamilton’s Curse, discusses at length Hamilton’s strong desire for mercantilism in this country, and throws the stated desires of Obama and McCain into the mix for comparison purposes.
Obama is a slick politician, so I expect him to continue to administer the neo-mercantilist, Hamiltonian empire that has been built up by both parties over the decades, with all of its schemes for corporate welfare for defense contractors, investment bankers and myriad other politically active businesses which, in turn, provide financial support for the regime. But Obama is also a hardcore leftist who spent his earlier career working with some of the craziest socialists in America, groups like ACORN, who advocated such things as kicking doctors off the boards of hospitals and replacing them with “the poor,” and Soviet-style nationalization of the energy and health care industries.
With the Republican Party in the process of choking to death on its own imperialistic big government vomit, I’m reminded of a true Ron Paul classic demonstrating yet again his penchant for delivering a blunt required message rather than the usual party line candy-coated message we get from his lawmaking peers. Ron Paul is an economic and political rainmaker.
When he rises to deliver a speech in the House of Representatives he knows his words will be delivered to an echo chamber, but he does it anyway. He does it for the cause of human liberty and we love him for it.
If there is anyone out there who can make the following happen, please do so:
Gather all Republican lawmakers and governors together.
Strap them in theater seats.
Play Ron Paul’s “We’ve Been Neo-Conned” speech from 2003 on the screen.
When the speech ends, start it over again.
Repeat number 4 until they all reject their evil ways and embrace the Constitution.
Lady Liberty is wielding her paddle and the GOP have been very bad children. With each THWACK the only response should be, “Thank you, may I have another.”
Someone is responsible, and it’s important that those of us who love liberty, and resent big-brother government, identify the philosophic supporters who have the most to say about the direction our country is going. If they’re wrong – and I believe they are – we need to show it, alert the American people, and offer a more positive approach to government. However, this depends on whether the American people desire to live in a free society and reject the dangerous notion that we need a strong central government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave. Do the American people really believe it’s the government’s responsibility to make us morally better and economically equal? Do we have a responsibility to police the world, while imposing our vision of good government on everyone else in the world with some form of utopian nation building? If not, and the enemies of liberty are exposed and rejected, then it behooves us to present an alternative philosophy that is morally superior and economically sound and provides a guide to world affairs to enhance peace and commerce.
On the President-Elect’s web site Change.gov, Obama advocates compulsory community service:
…all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and … all college students … conduct 100 hours of community service…
Why oh why would the first black president of America allow, and perhaps even encourage, yet another form of slavery in our nation? Has Barack Obama forgotten the African-American side of his own heritage? Doesn’t he know that compulsory community service is just slavery by a different name?
The controversy over coercing young people into national servitude to their political masters emerged almost as soon as Obama named Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff-in-waiting.
J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner for Dallas Examiner.com was one of the first to point out that Emanuel co-authored a book that calls for compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25.
…I see no reason why compelled service should not be regarded as involuntary servitude — labor rendered against one’s will — of the sort forbidden in the United States under the Thirteenth Amendment. More importantly, I see no reason why compelled service, as an imposition against an individual’s right to exercise liberty and determine the course of his or her own life, should not be regarded as evil.
Quote of the Day: “If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.” — William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) Source: “The Forgotten Man and Other Essays,” 1919
Subject: Will seven years of damage to civil liberties be reversed?
We heard it repeatedly: “Change we can believe in.” That’s what the President-elect promised. Do you expect it?
Well, we’re going to demand it.
Our civil liberties were trashed during the last seven years.
Habeas Corpus. Torture. Warrantless spying. And more. Where do we begin? For one thing . . .
We want President Obama to tell us the magnitude of the Bush Administration’s warrantless spying on Americans.
In 2005 the New York Times exposed the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” They had to rush the story to publish the story before the Bush Administration could stop it with an injunction. The story scared the Bush administration. And rightly so.
They were breaking the law. Someone should’ve gone to jail. But the Bush Administration had cajones — big brass ones.
First, they stonewalled, misdirected, and refused to provide documents to Congress. They even subpoenaed the phone records of the investigating reporters.
Then they demanded that Congress legalize their crimes retroactively, and immunize the phone companies that had conspired with them.
It took two years, but the Bush administration got what it wanted.
First, they had to wait for an election to provide a Congressional majority of “change Democrats.” It was the Democrats who gave the president his “get out of jail free card.”
One notable “change Democrat” showed us what change really means. His name was Barack Obama. He changed from his 2006 stance and voted to give President Bush the unconstitutional powers and immunity from prosecution that President Bush so desperately wanted and needed.
Barack Obama euphoria and the president-elect’s frighteningly Bush-like foreign policy is tackled in this, Doug Lasken’s latest excellent piece. For his previous work for Liberty Maven see “Where’s A Good Party?“
End Obama’s Honeymoon Now!
By Doug Lasken
A political honeymoon is that sweet time after a hard fought election in which the victor enjoys a large mandate and feels free to coast and party for a while. It’s sweet for the victor, anyway. For the population, including the majority that voted for the victor, the honeymoon can entail an ill-advised hiatus in scrutiny of the government.
The Obama victory in particular brings a dangerous honeymoon, because the euphoria of his victory is so powerful. And why shouldn’t it be? He’s the first black president, defeating in a landslide a seasoned, popular, white politician. There does not seem to be any way to ask people to calm down. From my vantage as a high school teacher, I have to be pleased at the intense and ubiquitous engagement of students in this election and their interest in the outcome, quite an anomaly in modern times. “It’s all good,” as the kids say.
But is it all good? If you don’t follow the news closely, and most people don’t, then you’re probably missing a few things. Here’s a short list.
Liberty Maven
“, explores the slow development of the presidency from its humble beginnings to its godlike stature today.
