If only the mainstream media would wake up and those stiff collared Republican insiders could loosen up, then the barriers to liberty would clear like a morning mist, and Ron Paul would be paraded into the executive office with trumpets trumpeting and streamers streaming – or so some would hope.
But it won’t happen that way!
Ron Paul can get elected, and mainstream media and the GOP may find it unavoidable to appease and succumb to his supporters somewhat, but they will be like cats being fed salad. The ideas of liberty do not nourish such institutions, in fact, they starve them. The fact that they resist, is an indication that the liberty movement is on the right track. Expect it to continue until independent media supersedes the mainstream and two-party politics is a thing of the past.
Even if Ron Paul does become President, the battle will have just begun. We should expect constant media misrepresentation and whining over his every step toward liberty and a great deal of political maneuvering intended to delegitimize the liberty movement. The battle is a long one and it will require eternal vigilance to progress ever further toward liberty. Each step along the way however, will empower the revolution with hope and energize the remnant with enthusiasm.
Why the Mainstream Media will Resist
The mainstream media’s raison d’être is to appeal to the lowest common denominator. To titillate the greatest number at the minimal effort. Part of doing this has been to create a false dichotomy of opinion. To borrow a phrase from Tom Woods, a forum for ideas spanning the expansive divide between Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. It’s not about whether a war is wrong, it’s about how aggressive it ought to be, or which distant program to withdraw troops is acceptably dangerous. Or if tax rates for X should be 35% or 39%. The industry and its talking heads can play this game all day long and appear to be well informed. When the fabric of their world view is challenged by what they call extreme and fringe ideas, they are as lost as a bunch of art students in a lecture on structural engineering. Having invested their career in the mainstream media game and having found their preferred position on the ground, they’re in no rush to enter a new playing field of ideas.
This goes without mentioning mainstreams resistance due to affiliations with vested interests, with the political establishment, corporate advertisers, share holders or NWO protagonists. They would also need to overcome the inertia of relying on consumer dullness in their strategy to sell fear and subsequent rescue by those who know what’s good for them. Imagine them as adolescents, in search of power, fame and adoration, telling the masses of children what to do and what to think.
A few will stand atop that playhouse and some will even jump off, but the playhouse that is mainstream media is crumbling, it will never be a beacon of liberty, it will merely observe liberty’s revolution, in befuddlement, from an ever greater distance, as it fades into insignificance.
Why the Republican Party will Resist
The major parties too, will meet a similar fate, should the revolution continue. The concept of a two-party political system is antagonistic to the development of liberty. The growth of liberty will come in proportion to the disestablishment of the traditional political party power structure.
Those within party politics have invested their careers and reputations within that structure, a structure that demands loyalty and a desire to preserve party power. It is not a system under which the pursuit of liberty is the main driving force. It is about winning, being the biggest and toughest kid on the block. Don’t expect them to welcome with open arms, a movement and ideology that augers their institution’s demise.
The People’s Support is the Key
The gnashing of teeth over the resistance of mainstream media and the political establishment is wasted grief. Though we ought to be thrilled when our political achievements force them into submission, they aren’t our allies and never will be. They are at best tools, at worst obstacles. We need to use and influence them, but that is achieved only in proportion to the strength of our ideas and the cumulative weight of people’s support of such ideas. These institutions, in order to retain legitimacy, have to respond to the wants of the people. The more the people know and the more they demand, the more mainstream media and the political parties are forced to bend to the will of the people.
This new revolution, a battle of ideas, will be won by influencing the hearts and minds of the people. It’s an information revolution and while the number of converts grow and their knowledge grows, liberty progresses. The behavior of mainstream media and the political institutions will be a mere reflection of the degree to which the people have come to learn about and desire liberty.
I’ve just watched this incredible documentary by the renowned Australian journalist John Pilger.
It examines the political lies and media incompetency behind the War on Terror.
The video is available online for anyone outside Australia HERE!
The trailer is below:
This film was recently banned by the Lannan Foundation in the US. Details and John Pilger’s Open letter to Noam Chomsky regarding the cancellation is HERE!
… an article I wrote recently and contributed at Daily Paul
Convincing Leftists that a Ron Paul Presidency is Empowering
On the delusions of Citizen Powers under Centralized Government
A significant obstacle to convincing left leaning voters to accept a more libertarian position, is their fear that taking the federal government out of schools and health care and the like, would leave the citizenry powerless on such matters and that the resulting services would be inferior and less accessible.
I recently saw a comment along these lines by someone opposing Ron Paul and his libertarian constitutional type ideology. It reflected two common misunderstandings, which if grasped, would make Ron Paul’s approach more widely agreeable. An understanding of these two concepts would allow them to see through the myths and distortions of years of government schooling and mainstream media propaganda which purports centralized government to be the great savior of all our economic and social woes.
The first misunderstanding is to think that Ron Paul could, or even intends, to take away the right of the various states to run such services that have become increasingly under the control of the federal government. The state governments would take control over such things as public schooling should the unconstitutional role of the federal government be withdrawn.
The second misunderstanding is that centralized governance somehow empowers the citizen consumer. In fact, the opposite is true. Centralization reduces the power of the individual citizen while increasing the relative power of a few lobby groups with vested interests. Centralization also enables bureaucratic webs of inefficiency and politically correct stupidity to infest and resist any progression toward producing a service that serves the consumer well.
Contrast the situation of a group of parents hiring a private tutor to educate their 10 or 15 children, as was the early tradition in schooling, with that of federally controlled schooling. In the decentralized system, each parent had considerable power in regard to influencing the schooling experience their child received. In the centralized system, parents are essentially powerless, unless they dedicate huge efforts toward political activism, and even then, their efforts will probably be in vain in regard to making any significant changes to what goes on at their child’s school.
The further from the center of power that a person is, the lesser is their potential to affect change. The greater the degree of centralization, the greater is the degree of disempowerment to the consumer. Also, centralization reduces competition as it tends toward a ‘one solution fits all’ approach, further reducing consumers’ power to receive a service to their liking.
One of the great, but largely forgotten benefits of smaller autonomous units of governance, is that it allows competition and variation among government services. This serves two very important functions. Firstly, it presents consumers with a choice of different services, though they may have to move to another suburb, city or state to be able to partake in a service they prefer. The second benefit is that the various units become more responsive to consumers’ demands, as consumers of their services vote with their feet and they also gain power by being able to compare the successes of another region’s service to their own. They gain empirical evidence as means to pressure change in their local system, to root out causes of waste and ineffectiveness in their local service, a tool which does not exist in a ‘one service for all’ centralized system.
Jeffrey Tucker, an entertaining proponent of consumer sovereignty, recently spoke on the relative powers consumers of Wall Mart have compared to consumers at the government’s Department of Motor Vehicles. His observations demonstrate how consumers are king at Wall Mart relative to the de-humanizing treatment they receive from government service providers. His talk is below!
In summary, a Ron Paul, or libertarian constitutional type presidency, would not lead to a rapid dismantling of what is perceived as essential government services. Nor would a libertarian trend toward further decentralization or even free market provision of such services, reduce consumer power. These common fears are not only unfounded, they have things back to front. Our sovereignty as consumers, as reflected by our power to influence and choose, would increase as services progressed toward decentralization and privatization.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
The etymology of Vigilante: ~ Spanish for watchman, guard, from vigilante vigilant, from Latin vigilant-, vigilans.
This blog is a place for me to take part in being a watchman for liberty and to help spread the light of the many vigilantes in the eternal struggle for liberty.
I personally espouse a peaceful and legal means of working toward liberty, through the means of reasoning, research and communication. To shine a light on truth and wisdom is a means to liberty.
