“I told you so” isn’t a very gentle or polite opening for a conversation, so let’s just forget that I told you so both in 2008 and 2012 and treat those campaigns as phases you had to get through on your own, without distraction and paying no heed to naysayers, to get where you are now. The average Ron Paul supporter’s energy and dedication certainly commands my respect and, I think, the respect of most others whose path toward freedom didn’t take them down that road.
Hopefully, you can now see that Ron Paul is not going to restore the old American republic and lead you to liberty. Hopefully, you can see now that not only is it not going to happen, but that it never was going to happen.
The deck was thoroughly stacked. Against Paul, against you, against any threat to a status quo which has calcified over the last 120 years (starting with the introduction of “ballot access” laws to narrow the November choice to two, and the evolution of primaries and conventions toward a process that inevitably produces two look-alikes).
That status quo may break or crumble under external pressure, but it will never soften to internal re-shaping of the type that a Republican presidential campaign proposes.
Where to go from here? That is the question.
As a first step, I propose that you examine the two Paul presidential campaigns, with the benefit of hindsight and an eye toward identifying their essentials. You’ll find that much of what you held dear back then can be jettisoned — the partisan and political compromises bolted onto the campaign’s libertarian superstructure as armor or camouflage for the purpose of “working within the system.” Now that you’re about to abandon politics, you won’t need those things any more.
Auditing the Fed, resurrecting “states rights,” attempting to appeal to a base of social conservative voters who fear freedom so deeply that they’ll swallow anything the GOP establishment feeds them … those tactics did not serve you well where you were, and you won’t need them where you’re going.
Did I say you’re about to abandon politics? Yes, I did. Six years, $70 million, numerous lawless actions on the part of the Republican establishment and two heart-breaking failures to penetrate the GOP’s national convention, with a candidate eminently qualified for the presidency by what you thought were the relevant standards, should be enough to convince you that “working within the system” isn’t going to get the job done. Welcome to the real world.
The good news is that in that real world, you’re part of the majority. Most Americans either won’t or can’t participate in the state’s quadrennial “election” ritual. President Barack Obama took office with the express consent of less than one in four Americans. Nearly as many voted for someone else. More than twice as many voted for no one at all.
While it’s true that most of those non-voters are at best only marginally conscious of the significance of their abstention, neither are they fully invested in the system you sought to reform and now understand you must abolish. Even if they haven’t joined your army, they’re bona fide potential recruits, unlike the diehard Republican voters you’ve spent the last six years hectoring for support.
The first step, of course, is to become one of those non-voters.
The second step? Status esse delendam: The state must be destroyed.
If not now, when? If not you, who?
The R3VOLution is dead. Long live the revolution.
Great article! I don't know if the R3VOLution is dead (this depends on how we're defining it), but I have to see recent events as a huge blow to the idea that liberty can be 'restored' by working within the system. I think the system is evil. I don't want it reformed. I want it dead. The only reason to work in the system is to get access to insider information and to sabotage it. There's no way you're going to 'convert' the system. The sole possible exception might be on the local level in a very remote area, but even then I find it doubtful in most cases.
My recent post The R3VOLution That Wasn’t: A Note to Paul Supporters
How would you propose destroying it and what would replace it? What would such a society look like? Like Iraq? Like Albania after the fall of communism there? Like Seattle during the WTO riots in 1999? Like major cities when there is a power outage or a police strike? What would you do with dissidents? How would property rights be enforced? Just asking.
Marconius,
There are somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand article on this site, largely dedicated to answering your questions. Enjoy!
Best regards,
Tom Knapp
I don't mean to be antagonistic. I'd just caution that what's visible from afar may not always be what's the case on the ground, but it does appear from the personal accounts I've read that momentum is being had.
In any case, even if working within the party system is fruitless, a credible political approach might be issue advocacy.
My recent post Garnering Indulgences from the Corporate Elite
The main purpose of the Ron Paul campaign was to get libertarians oriented to speaking to other people besides themselves.The next one was to get the media oriented toward libertarian candidates and our growing power to influence people. The RP campaign has been the most successful attempt to spread our ideas. From our place within the Rethuglicans we can now more easily sabotage the neo-cons and other statists and they know it. They want us to leave and they know that we will take over the Republicans or destroy them and we don't care which we do
I think this is an accurate assessment of intent, regadless of my opinion as to its wisdom or long term success. On that I cannot comment.
Thomas, great article, but I think that Status esse delendam should be Imperium delendum est. But I know small Latin and less Greek, so defer to the more scholarly.
And as to your question (and Lenin's question) of What is to be done? I reply: conditional campaigning — as I explain here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hulsey8.1.1.html
The whole Ron Paul thing reminds me of the "good cop, bad cop", i.e. this notion that politicians can be your friend if they're of the "right" ideology. I'd question what RP would actually be able to accomplish anyway, especially when no one else in Congress agrees with him on most things.
My recent post New Morning
Unless you can answer every single detail of how a free society might work we must remain slaves. That is why we never freed the blacks. Cotton is just too damn important.
"What's the difference between a Libertarian and an Anarchist? About six months"
While ultimately, the Ron Paul campaign wasn't going to change the system, it did open a LOT of eyes. My personal hope is that many of those motivated to work on the RP campaign were also motivated to learn more about liberty so that they know there is somewhere else to go with all that wonderful energy instead of becoming burnt out & disheartened.