15 Responses to The Mote That Is In Thy Brother’s Eye

  1. Franklin Harris February 19, 2008 at 12:12 pm #

    Just a tad. Ron Paul’s campaign certainly had a “cult of personality” aspect to it, but at least every Paul supporter I’ve ever encountered (in person and online) could tell me, in detail, what Paul stood for and seemed pretty excited about his platform. Now, is Obama’s support that substantive? Not hardly.

  2. DDH February 19, 2008 at 3:42 pm #

    Yes, I do! 😉

    Disclaimer: I am not against Ron Paul, he is honest and a man of principle, but I very hope Obama will beat Hillary and McCain in the end!!!

  3. Brad Spangler February 19, 2008 at 3:45 pm #

    Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with EastAsia.

  4. Taylor February 19, 2008 at 3:48 pm #

    No Brad, Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia. Man, don’t you know anything?

  5. Administrator February 19, 2008 at 6:02 pm #

    I agree that Paul’s support is based on his substantive ideas and that Obama’s isn’t; that wasn’t the point of comparison I had in mind. It was more the glowing messianic language that struck me as similar in both cases.

  6. Tracy Saboe February 19, 2008 at 6:35 pm #

    Paul’s not a personality cult. His campaign is bigger then him, and will continue after the primeries. Their are already numerous Ron Paul Republicans running for office and several of them have won their Republican Primeries already in Mariland.

    The Ron Paul Revolution of transforming the Republican Party won’t end with Dr Paul.

    On the other hand, Obama’s an empty suit. It’s definitely a personality cult.

    I’m not sure that Ron Paul supporters ever believed Paul was the Messiah. Although if he COULD get the presidency, he would have pretty easily cut the federal budget by about a Trillion Dollars/year by the end of his 1st term.

    Tracy

    Tracy

  7. Rad Geek February 19, 2008 at 7:31 pm #

    The Ron Paul Revolution of transforming the Republican Party won’t end with Dr Paul.

    Is that the “Revolution’s” goal now?

    I thought the goal was to elect Ron Paul President of the United States, or at least get him the Republican nomination for President. But I guess if at first you don’t succeed, you can always move the goalposts.

    This sounds like electioneering mission creep to me. In order to do A (get libertarian, anti-war policies) you decided to do B (get Ron Paul elected). To do B you’d have to do C and D (raise money and convince Republican primary/caucus voters). To do D you found out you’d have to do E (either recruit and register new Republicans or convince enough influentials within the Republican party and the media to get your message to the existing Republicans). But now you’ve found out that to do E effectively you have to do F (“transform the Republican Party” (!)). To do F, you’re planning to do G (run a bunch of Pauliticians in other, lower-level Republican primary races). But to do G, you’ve got to go back to C and D. And around and around we go.

    Maybe it’s just time to cut your losses and look for other ways to do A without getting sucked even further into the quagmire of electoral politics.

    I’m not sure that Ron Paul supporters ever believed Paul was the Messiah.

    Maybe not. But at least one does think he’s “The Greatest American ever” Another thinks that he’s a light that shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended him not.

  8. Rad Geek February 19, 2008 at 7:34 pm #

    Messed up the first link: “The Greatest American ever”.

  9. Soviet Onion February 19, 2008 at 8:33 pm #

    Well, he does have that Chairman Mao smile. I foresee a t-shirt in the making.

  10. Tracy Saboe February 19, 2008 at 11:55 pm #

    No, that’s not the goal. The goal was to get him ellected.

    However, that doesn’t mean it has to end if Paul doesn’t get ellected.

    Tracy

  11. Micha Ghertner February 20, 2008 at 10:55 am #

    His campaign is bigger then him, and will continue after the primeries.

    Will there be a second coming? Keep hope alive! Praise Jeebuz!

  12. Anthony Gregory February 20, 2008 at 12:12 pm #

    Um, the goal of the Ron Paul Revolution was mostly to spread the ideas of liberty, which it has done better than anything else in my lifetime, certainly. The Ron Paul Revolution has been an enormous success, and it has inspired a new generation of libertarians. I know there are plenty of critics, and yet, among people younger than me (I’m 27) or my age, I know many, many of them who have gotten involved because of Ron Paul. I can’t say that about anyone else.

  13. Joe February 20, 2008 at 7:29 pm #

    See Charles, the goal was not to “get libertarian, anti-war policies,” it was to “get him ellected,” because then he could walk on the Potomac and restore that 220-year old document that most of his followers revere.

  14. Rad Geek February 20, 2008 at 9:47 pm #

    Tracy,

    Well, then it definitely sounds like electoral mission creep to me. “Well, we got in here to do A, but that failed, so let’s stay in here and do B instead.” Again, perhaps it’s time to cut your losses and find a better strategy, rather than just keeping in electoral politics because that’s where you started out?

    Anthony,

    I’m glad that Ron Paul and his boosters have gotten people excited about libertarian ideas. I wish that there had been more thought (especially by the boosters, since I take it that Ron Paul was busy doing other things) put into what to do with all these excited, activated people after the close of the campaign. I don’t think there has been much thought about that, and to the extent that there hasn’t been, that means that a lot of time and energy and tens of millions of dollars are going to go straight down the toilet, as the Paulitarians either burn out and wander away, what with the end of their groups’ raison d’etre, or else pitch themselves into the next “educational” failing electoral campaign, either as marginalized Republicans or as members of the LP. A project like “transforming the Republican Party” is more or less guaranteed to be a tar-baby for this putative “Revolution.”

    I predict that, unless something quite unusual happens over the next couple of months, in the direction of redirecting former Paulitarians toward some other concrete project outside of electoral politics, then, four years from today, Ron Paul’s campaign will have made no more difference to the political consensus than Howard Dean’s in 2004, or Pat Buchanan’s in 1992.

  15. Ben February 23, 2008 at 9:39 pm #

    Charles,

    It’s not a case of mission creep per se. Some of our original goals failed. But in other ways, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Before all of this happened, in my state, it would have never been possible to pull 2,200 people with libertarian beliefs of varying sorts together on two days notice for rallies. However, we managed to do so. The main impact is that a lot of people have realized that they aren’t the only ones who can’t stand watching the crap roll out of the mouths of the anchors on Faux/TASS or CNN. We lost the race for the nomination? OK. But in LA, we came incredibly close to simply taking over the state GOP. We came for Paul, and along the way, we realized that the GOP has been left a very fragmented and weak organization after 8 years of Bush, and that an alliance with the paleo-cons who have been shoved aside is something that could prove very useful (while remaining nothing more than a temporary alliance.)
    Here, the meetup groups have turned into vehicles to get people elected to the house. Sure, some people have become less active, but they’re also a bit demoralized. There’s nothing really fixed right now – his candidacy has opened a lot of doors for us, and what we do, in very large part, depends on our motivation and drive.

    Ben

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