Time for Ron Paul Fans to Stop Supporting the Constitution

Jeremy R. Hammond

September 20, 2012

Time for Ron Paul Fans to Stop Supporting the Constitution

by KURT SCHLICHTER

There is no more time for games, no room for uncompromising principle. Ron Paul fans, you need to choose, because not voting for Romney is a vote for Obama. It’s that simple. And you could make the difference to help sustain the status quo but under a Republican president, which is the lesser of the two evils.

Maybe Romney isn’t the uncompromising Ron Paul hero you’d design if you could build your ideal candidate from scratch, but he’s a bit better than the guy on whose watch the NDAA was signed into law, eliminating habeas corpus. (Although Romney did say he would have signed the NDAA, too, but he wasn’t president, so he didn’t actually do it.)

Making no choice in this election is a choice – it’s a choice for a collectivist who will get two or three Supreme Court picks over a man who picked a guy, Paul Ryan, who understands crony capitalism and its unbreakable link to unaccountability of corrupt and criminal human action even better than Obama does.

Now, this is a two-way street. Romney and Ryan need to reach out to libertarians over their common ground. Fortunately, there is lots of common ground. Like Ryan’s first name, Paul, which is the same as Ron Paul’s last name.

No, the Republican Party is not a libertarian party, but it is the only party with any libertarian element. It’s the only place you have any chance of being heard. (Let’s just put that whole disenfranchisement business at the GOP Convention, that whole business about changing rules ex post facto with a scripted vote to prevent Ron Paul from being nominated even though he won the requisite five states and the refusal to seat his delegates, behind us!) Join us, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. And with sellouts like Rand Paul and the libertarian-wannabe Tea Party elements, you can fit right into the GOP!

Sure, the Democrats posture as guardians of freedom on a couple of issues – abortion, gay marriage – but that’s just a pose. It’s not part of any philosophy of human freedom; these are one-off policy choices made not because of a love for the Constitution but because they are demanded by the interest groups Democrats need to win elections.

When freedom becomes inconvenient, Democrats drop it like it’s hot. Republicans, on the other hand, take at least a few seconds to think about it before dropping freedom and violating the Constitution because they are demanded by the moneyed-interest groups Republicans need to win elections.

You can say a lot about libertarians, but they are principled about their view of the Constitution. We’ll give them that. They don’t compromise, and in many cases they earn the respect of conservatives (though never, ever, of Democrats). They just don’t understand realpolitik, unfortunately, or they would know why they need to vote for Romney. We can help bring you up to speed on how the game is played!

It’s hard to count how many times conservatives have watched GOP debates and muttered “Damn, I’d vote for Ron Paul if he’d just stop talking about foreign policy.” Ron Paul’s uncompromising position that we should obey the Constitution and obey the golden rule in our foreign policy lost him support among mainstream conservatives. Now, if he had better understood how to play the game and just shut up about it instead of telling Americans truths they don’t want to hear, he could have had a better shot.

Still, there’s overlap with the Republicans but there is none with the Democrats. And that’s not surprising. Libertarians believe in principles of liberty, as they see them (which is different from how liberals and we conservatives see them). Liberals believe in raw power to impose their will as they see fit with no limit. Conservatives believe in slightly more limited raw power to impose their will as they see fit. Like Obamacare’s individual mandate that lays an unconstitutional direct tax on people for nonconsumption. Romneycare did the same thing, but it was only at the state level! See the difference? Surely we can agree that if government is going to violate Liberty by usurping authoritarian powers, it should be done at the state and not federal level!

Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Virgil Goode do not stand for collectivism or crony capitalism. But right now, they stand in the way of stopping collectivism or crony capitalism, and that’s bad for those special interest groups we talked about earlier.

Let’s not sugar-coat it – there are some real differences between libertarians and conservatives. Foreign policy comes to mind; we conservatives see libertarian foreign policy as naive, while libertarians point to things like the violations of the Constitution and international law, the bombing of innocent civilians, and so on. The drug war is another difference of opinion, though one the libertarians would have a hearing on in the GOP if their influence grows (which we will do everything to prevent, just like at the convention). We don’t need to agree on everything. We don’t even need to agree on most things. In fact, we don’t really need to agree on anything. You just need to vote for Romney, because if you don’t, you are voting for Obama! Obama, I tell you!

With the Democrats, you definitely agree on nothing. We all saw the Democrat convention. It was a collectivist congregation worshiping at the altar of big government. Free this, free that, bailouts this, bailouts that.

There was no there there for principled libertarians. Nothing.

Now, Romney, on the other hand, took a more principled stand and drew a line at the auto bailouts and only supported using taxpayers’ money to bail out the banks! (And forget what we all saw at the Republican convention.)

The Republicans are not libertarians, but at least libertarian-conservatives (which is really not an oxymoron, believe me), make up an influential and growing part of the party. There are exactly zero “libertarian-liberals.” Nor can there be; Democrats embrace everything libertarians oppose. Republicans only embrace most things libertarians oppose.

That’s why it’s silly to dismiss Romney as no different than Obama. Some wave off their obligation to choose with a cliché, that Romney is just “the lesser of two evils.”

That’s true, but the key is “lesser.” If you have to choose between pissing off Stalin or Hitler, you’d be a fool to shrug your shoulders and risk some face time with the dude with the funny mustache (no, the other one with the funny mustache). Make no mistake, you are obligated—obligated, I tell you—to choose between one of two pro-establishment candidates! Don’t throw away your vote by denying that obligation and refusing to lend legitimacy to the perpetuation of the status quo!

This is no time to “make a statement” or pout that Ron Paul got treated badly in Tampa. He did get treated badly in Tampa, and that was stupid and unnecessary. Again, let’s put that behind us! If you are truly dedicated to the Constitution you won’t let it be trampled on by a Democratic president in order to make some soon-to-be-moot point to the anonymous GOP party hacks responsible for not giving Ron Paul a primo speaking slot because they knew he would just repeat truths we really just don’t want to hear.

Priorities, people. Nothing less than the Constitution is at stake here. And I think we can all agree that it would be much better to have a Republican president trampling the Constitution.

No choice is a choice, and with the polls showing a dead-even race every vote that does not go to Romney is effectively a vote for Obama. There’s no debate here; you opt out and you support Obama by default. How can any principled libertarian do that?

Although, by that same logic, and as the Democrats like to argue, every vote that does not go to Obama is effectively a vote for Romney, so go ahead and choose that way, if you like. You opt out and you support Romney by default. That’s cool, too.

Obama’s spent nearly four years trampling the First Amendment. Romney hasn’t spent any years doing that yet. Filmmakers who embarrassed the Obama regime are rousted by cops at 1:30 a.m. Romney would be much more civilized and wait until at least 8:00 a.m. to send in the SWAT teams to raid people’s homes without a warrant. Administration diplomats work with the UN to put in place blasphemy laws that give foreign mobs veto power over our right to speak. (Okay, you got me, I just made that up, but that’s only because if I criticized the Obama administration for any real issue, you would just point out that Romney’s position on it is exactly the same.) Religious organizations are told they must act contrary to their conscience as commanded by the government. (That one is true, by virtue of their 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. This is why, for example, your pastor cannot marry you unless you first obtain permission from the state to get married. Although, admittedly, this isn’t really a partisan issue at all, since both Elephants and Asses believe that the state is the one and only true god.)

The Second Amendment is under fire and is just one Supreme Court vote from being snatched away. Our government sends guns to Mexican criminals in order to justify further crack-downs on American citizens.

Romney would keep the Second Amendment and only trash the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. And he sure as hell would make sure to keep the lid on things like Operation Fast and Furious!

At this rate, pretty soon the Administration will trash the Third Amendment and be quartering troops in citizens’ homes to save money that it’ll then redistribute to its cronies! Romney would keep that Amendment, too. (Unless he declares martial law to restore order after the bond bubble bursts, but that would be a different set of circumstances than exist at this moment.)

Romney’s not your dream candidate. We get that. He’s not most of ours either. But the inescapable fact – whether you like it or not, whether it’s fair or not – is that either he or Obama will be the next president. So you might as well just get on board and vote for the perpetuation of the status quo, too, like everyone else does, or people will make fun of you and call you names for being such an outcast, fringe, conspiracy theorizing, cult-like, unpatriotic American.

Don’t be the guy in 20 years who looks over his shoulder to make sure no policemen are listening and then says to his kids, “Back in 2012, I supported Ron Paul, who was disrespected by the GOP establishment.  I supported Ron Paul because I loved the Constitution, but since he lost the nomination, I didn’t vote and so I let the Democrat who hated the whole Constitution win. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have voted for the Republican who only hated most of the Constitution, so he could win, instead.”

The Romney-Ryan camp needs to do its part too; they need to reaffirm their rhetorical commitment to Constitutional liberty, so that when President Romney violates the Constitution, Republicans will at least be able to point to the contrary rhetoric so as to be able to continue to stand behind their guy. Freedom needs to be part of the conversation, even if it’s just talk, and not just Obama’s appalling record. While they can’t undo the gratuitous insults at the convention, they can make their case to the possibly decisive libertarians, which case boils down to the logic, “If you don’t vote for Stalin, you’re voting for Hitler!”

Ron Paul guys, Gary Johnson guys, Virgil Goode guys… the Constitution needs you. It needs you now. It needs you to put your respect for it aside and help elect the only one of the two pro-establishment candidates who has any chance of moving America in the direction you don’t want at a bit slower pace, because the other guy will only steer the ship towards the cliff even faster.

Support and vote for Mitt Romney, or help Obama complete his transformation of America into a nation that violates every principle you claim you embrace. Better that happen under a Republican than a Democrat.

It’s time to choose.

(Disclaimer: In case you didn’t notice, this is satire. Read Schlichter’s actual article here.)