In Defense of Libertarianism, part I

CNN was doing a post-debate analysis of the vice-presidential debates this evening. A "beyond politics" spot that the station apparently runs with some regularity. It's the sort of show you'd see on PBS if all semblance of television studio was ushered out for a black background and a round table in the middle - an attempt to filter out the noise of the world and focus, directly, on the issues in question and the people answering them. CNN, conversely, prefers the studio background and endless scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen: constantly reminding the viewer that news is current and happening and ever-changing even as this analysis is taking place, and any attempt to cement ideas discussed herein shall be forfeit as idle notions tossed about in casual conversation. The problems are real but the people are shadows in the cave.

One of these shadows was named Alan Wolfe, a political scientist and sociologist at Boston College, whose most current book is called The Future of Liberalism. He seemed a smart fellow, and well-spoken. No one else at the table seemed particularly noteworthy: either there was little going on in the first place in each of those heads or they were out of their element, and as a forgiving sort of person I offer the benefit of the doubt.

When speaking about the public response to the $700 billion bailout (which both Obama and McCain claim to despise but championed as necessary anyway, and publicly touted the sections of the bill which each pushed for), the moderator of said discussion brought up the idea that Americans don't like the idea of bailing out Wall Street. No kidding. And as the discussion wandered, somehow the conversation turned to whether Americans wanted to help out those Americans who got in over their heads by taking out mortgages they couldn't afford in the first place.

Around this time, Alan Wolfe made an interesting observation. He spoke of what he sees as the difference between a moral society and a moralistic society. A moral society he defines broadly as one that reflects on its actions and their effects in order to establish better practices. Whereas a moralistic society holds a sort of moral absolutism that divides the world into good and evil but does not or cannot reflect on itself to recognize its own flaws. Wolfe thinks that American society today is primarily a moralistic society. Gee, I can't think of any examples of this, can you?



As if to illustrate this chance comment for the viewer, a video played shortly thereafter of Barack Obama giving his Democratic nomination acceptance speech. Borrowing another man's more famous phraseology, he emphasized: "I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again the last best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom..."

Since when, I ask, does the strength of this nation come from its leader? I will restore, he said. As Abraham Lincoln made the point in the first place when he appealed to congress, "We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility." The Presidency, you might remember, is not ascended to by an emperor or a military dictator. You've still got to get elected in this country. For the last eight years, George W. Bush has felt the need to constantly remind us he is the Chief Executive, or the Commander in Chief, or the decider-in-Chief. Rarely does he seem to consciously realize that his is a position of elected representation, and he was put in that position as much to represent the interests of the electorate as to wield the authority he's been granted.

Obama could have said "We will restore our place in the world," and to any of the hungry faithful in the building it wouldn't have made a difference on way or another. But Martin Luther King, Jr., he is not. A moral leader is one who reminds us of our responsibilities, our capabilities and our dreams. Not one who intends to take the mantle placed on his head and lead us out of the frying pan on his self-identified qualities.

When I was in New Hampshire, I remember a television ad for John Edwards featuring a man who cried onstage with him, believing in his heart that Edwards would truly stand up for the little guy and the factory worker, and he wouldn't be bought out by corporate special interests.

When Americans vote for a leader they hope will save a nation, it further signifies the moralistic tendency that many recognize today. The danger is that we continue to give away our voice in our own governing process, continue to grant more powers to the decider-in-Chief and thereby limiting our own capacity and the capabilities of our local elected officials, until our government more closely resembles an oligarchy and our nation more closely resembles the Roman empire before its collapse.

As for the bailout, we Americans seem generally unaware that when we lawfully take away another person's right to live or do business as they see fit, we also limit our own. That's the curse of personal responsibility and the blessing. On the positive side, from the public reception this bill received from the get-go, it seems clear that Americans at least recognize that they don't wish to be debt-slaves for another $700 billion. Unfortunately, that's where we are, since the bill cleared the House the second time around.

Before I turned off the program, a comment was made about the ability of politics itself to change society. This is a fascinating thought, but one that needs to forment, and belongs in another post.

Ron Paul releases his State of the rEVOLution

Heading home, exhausted.

Posted today, January 15th. Written January 9th, 2008:

I guess it's only my second time flying in the past twenty years, but the roar of the jet engine as the plane accelerates towards lift off is unnerving and thrilling, as the airport flashes past the windows at two hundred miles an hour. I'm looking out on New Hampshire right now, at the forest of trees painted over the snowy white canvass, and the rolling White Mountains rise from the horizon and fade into the gray. Moving above the clouds seems a paradox I can't quite wrap my head around. Window seats, for me, remain essential.



We headed out of the Moultenborough house this morning around ten—those of us that were left. Most headed out earlier this morning around three, needing to hit the Manchester airport for early morning flights. Lorin and I both had to get there by this afternoon, so we jumped in the van with the trio from Pennsylvania that was staying with us, along with Dave and Pat Wallin, who had hitchhiked to get here two weeks ago and were once again hitching on back to Michigan.

We were all incredibly disappointed with the final New Hampshire primary results. Three weeks of ten hour days knocking on doors and going from house to house resulted in a solid 17,000 votes, but it also accounted for only 8% of the total Republican vote. Panama Harry was so disappointed when the vote started to roll in he couldn't even go to the "victory celebration" that we'd scheduled for the evening of the primary. Extremely high voter turnout was a part of the problem, as January 8th turned into one of the most gorgeous, balmy days in more than two months.

We were, however, also a little upset with the official campaign, and their strategy for “winning.” For instance, the official campaign made the strategic decision not to run very many television advertisements in the state, focusing instead on direct mailings and phone calls to as many Republican voters as possible—as many times as possible. “It worked for Congressman Paul in Texas,” we were told repeatedly. Clearly, it was too conservative a strategy for winning a primary.

Many of us here in the grassroots community are upset and concerned where we feel that the official campaign is not listening to us. There were many examples that could be cited where OLFDers were blocked by the official campaign's staff when we wanted more signs, or wanted to blanket canvass or wave signs or change the stock message we were told to deliver when making phone calls on behalf of the campaign. They were rather arrogant in their assumption that we were all amateurs who did not know what worked and what didn't, and they were also rather arrogant in their assumption that their strategy would be wholly successful.

This is the way it is: so many in the official campaign are amateurs themselves. Ron Paul's popularity has grown so quickly, and his funding ballooned so exponentially, that the official campaign is simply not yet prepared to actually utilize its resources properly and find a way to get non-Internet users to recognize and support Dr. Paul. They are using “tried and tested” techniques that worked in Paul's small Texas district—where he already knows everyone anyway and everyone knows him—and they're failing to realize what brought the entire grassroots movement to Dr. Paul in the first place.

We in the grassroots, on the other hand, know exactly what got our attention, and that was Ron Paul himself.

The official campaign's strategy so far is to basically stifle Ron Paul's message, then wrap him up and make him look like any other ordinary, Republican candidate. But we in the grassroots understand that Ron Paul is a fundamentally different creature than anyone else running for the Presidency of the United States, and we realized it by watching clips of Dr. Paul on YouTube. No direct mailing, or radio broadcast of Paul's positions can convey the honesty, sincerity, and common sense that the man speaks with, and the passion with which he speaks out against tyranny and for freedom. It isn't just Internet users—people all over the country are hungry for his message, as the viability of Barack Obama proves. People are hungry for his message, and for his principles and honesty, but unless they see him speak in the debates or in television advertisements, they will not understand who this man is or what he stands for.

A number of us in the OLFD sat down and made a list of a number of things that went right in New Hampshire, and what went wrong. Here is a short list of what we came up with:

The commercials suck. They don't show Ron Paul speaking, which is the best selling point for Ron Paul. Better commercials are made for FREE on YouTube by volunteers who have a better sense of advertisement than the campaign. The campaign should be showing specific clips of Ron Paul speaking on the issues, particularly the war and the economy. Clips that are already widely available on the Internet. Those are the clips that turned us on to Ron Paul, showing a man who makes common sense, who's intelligent, deeply sincere and who's deeply anti-establishment, and those are the clips that will wake voters up to Ron Paul as well. The campaign essentially stifles Ron Paul's very appeal when they don't get him on television, instead relying on voice-overs or statistics. Ron Paul sells himself, and he sells the message better than anything else could, and we need to realize it.

We walk up to people and they've NEVER HEARD of Ron Paul. An old woman saw our signs when she was walking out of the polling station in Moultenborough and asked who Ron Paul was. We told her and she said that if she'd known she'd have voted for him. The campaign's decision not to show Ron Paul in television ads has left voters with no impression of who he is or what he stands for.

OLFD notes: We should have had more door-to-door training before we send out volunteers door-to-door.

As far as door-to-door efficiency goes, put two or three in a car, then hit ONLY houses with cars in the driveway or lights on in the house. And when we talk to people, we need to make sure to ask if they're willing to support Dr. Paul in the election before we move on.

Sign waving in pairs is GREAT. Make EYE CONTACT and WAVE!

Phone polling is pretty awful, ESPECIALLY the scripts! People should be told to mention two or three points, and not be given a script AT ALL. Again: NO ONE SHOULD BE READING FROM A SCRIPT! If we're going to spend time personally calling people, we need to speak with them personally, not reading from a script (even if they let the answering machine pick up the call).

Hand-made signs! Personalization! Anything that reeks of industrialization is automatically ignored and dismissed.




All for now. I'm in Chicago, waiting to board my plane for the final leg home to Nebraska. This experience was one I'll never forget, and I fully intend to write more articles and post here in the coming weeks. Until then, I'll be taking a few days off. There's little more exhausting than working your ass off for three weeks, and seeing incredibly little impact for the work you've done. We all feel like that right now, but we'll get over it. This movement will continue with or without Dr. Paul, but we'll all be a little more hopeful if he remains our flag bearer.

One Day Left

We're working the last day of door-to-door here in New Hampshire. Today Steven, our house captain here (who also happens to be an amazing cook), and I are running around doing Get-Out-The-Vote. Should be an interesting day.

The New Hampshire Debates

Our car headed forty-five minutes north to Conway. Riding along in Doug's car were Pat, Aaron and I, and we got started early sign waving at the busiest intersection in Conway. Around 10:30 AM, we split up: Aaron and I hit the trail going door-to-door in the area, and Doug and Pat held down the intersection as a Ron Paul stronghold.



Door-to-door went really well. It seems Conway is a little more open to campaigners than people in Manchester or Concord - probably because they don't get hit as hard most of the year. Ran into one 80-year-old ex-military who supported Giuliani - and made fun of us since we weren't fighting in Iraq ourselves. Don't worry about wars, he said, the military can handle it. Well, obviously that wasn't the issue (never mind the fact that Ron Paul gets more monetary support from active military and ex military than any other candidate), but unfortunately he was in more of a fuming, pissed off mood, rather than a conversational one, so we extracted ourselves from the situation and continued on our way.

Lots of positive responses from undecided voters, and we left Constitutions and the new DVDs that we've been shipped, and we gave up around 4 PM for the day: that's earlier than we'd like to stop, but going door-to-door asking for political support is very mentally and emotionally draining. It was best to stop before we were all pissed off and worn out.



The ABC/Facebook Debates were fantastic - that is, Ron Paul actually got a chance to speak on a national stage, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. He hit a couple of home runs answering questions about Barack Obama, oil prices and the War, directing his answers towards economic reasoning for the most part. We had a number of points to cheer about here in the Moultonborough house, and it was very satisfying to see our candidate finally get a fair chance to speak at one of these debates.

Now we get to see what Ron Paul plans for tomorrow - he's purchased one hour of airtime tomorrow at the same time as the Fox News Forums from which he was excluded.

Run Paul Run.

The Post-Iowa Run

I worked the phones for most of the evening at campaign HQ in Concord. We all worked in the streets of downtown Concord handing out Constitutions to everyone in the streets, ducking into shops when we had the opportunity to hand out Constitutions to shop owners - and to get out of the four degree chill.



We quickly organized a march around 12:30 through Concord all the way to the State Capitol down the street, shouting "Ron Paul Revolution! Give us back our Constitution!" Yeah, it was corny, but we were all sincere about it: whatever ultimately happens in these elections, a movement has been started which is going to grow and live on well beyond the final U.S. pullout from Iraq - whenever that occurs, however much money and however many more troops will have died by then.

We rushed to Murphy's Tap Room in Manchester after we were done for the evening. Murphy's is a sports bar, but wouldn't you know it, all screens were on CNN this evening, and all eyes in this packed bar were eagerly anticipating the results for Dr. Ron Paul. We were rather upset that CNN's Republican pie graph had the results showing for Romney, Huckabee, McCain, and Thompson, and then there was a large white chunk in the top left corner that had no name attributed to it - the entire night. Ron Paul's name was never shown in the graph, but he ended up just behind McCain and Thompson, coming in at 10% of the total vote. It was a bit disappointing because we were really hoping for third place, which we missed by about 3%, but it wasn't a bad showing, and it should give some momentum heading into New Hampshire, where we'll almost certainly do better.

The owner of Murphy's is a Ron Paul supporter and gave us all free beer, and another supporter covered all of our meals for the evening.



Today we're heading for Berlin - New Hampshire (not Germany). Into the north, where few canvassers ever reach. They should be interested enough to hear us out, at the very least, which is all we need to convert most voters.

Moultonborough

New home here in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, and here's where I'll be spending the rest of my OLFD days. But I'm not retiring, nor are the other two hundred supporters who showed up on New Year's Day, ready to rock the Granite State for the next eight days.



The house here is a pretty sweet dig. Apparently Vijay set us up in some sort of boarding house for backwoods snowboarders, or something. There are about twenty bunks in this place, and we're gonna need 'em all 'cause we're gonna be packed full and tired as hell. Speaking of which... more updates later.