A Letter to My Democrat Brother-in-Law
by Danford Vander
Ploeg
Surprise! I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and I contend that even if you are a devoted adherent of the Democratic Party, your best strategy is to vote for Ron Paul in the primary. Since Ron Paul is an honorable man, and the rest of the Republicans are scum, you face the risk of another stolen election, as with George Bush, if Ron Paul is not the Republican candidate. You can still vote for Obama come fall, and rest assured that the Republican machine will be supporting the Democratic candidate, since they dislike Ron Paul much more than any Democrat. Is the choice between Hillary and Obama more important than ensuring we don't get another mini-Hitler? Of course, I think Ron Paul is the clear first choice, and that he has an excellent chance of winning the nomination. He's raising lots of money: last Sunday, he set an all-time, all-party, all-candidate record of $6 million in one day, and over $18 million for the quarter. He has thousands of enthusiastic, self-directed (!) volunteers. The failure of the polls to reflect his true strength may mean the end of polling as a propaganda tool. You'll know if I'm right after New Hampshire. (I only expect a third-place in Iowa.) He will be one of very few who can afford a 50-state primary campaign. It's pretty funny – the other Republicans (who think computers are for secretaries) keep asking him who he hired to run his Internet campaign. The answer is, he doesn't run it; it runs itself. The one-day money-bombs just for fun, the Ron Paul blimp, it's all totally independent. In my opinion, the most important point is to stop the war. Only Ron Paul qualifies as a serious anti-war candidate (Kucinich put Party loyalty ahead of principle to support Kerry, and his campaign is going nowhere). Much of the hard-core anti-war left already supports Ron Paul, and more members of the military have contributed to his campaign than all other candidates of both parties combined (soldiers have a vested interest in peace!). Second most important is the restoration of civil liberties, including habeas corpus. Again, Ron Paul is the right choice. He voted against the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, and all the rest. If he loses, I'll see you in Guantanamo: at least one neocon has suggested rounding up Ron Paul supporters as "domestic terrorists" (of course, it is only the government that is terrified), and you're probably on the list too, though for other reasons. Third most important is to save the economy, and here he really shines: He actually understands the banking system; he's written books on the subject. Curiously, it turns out that lots of leftists already know the Federal Reserve is a rip-off. Unfortunately, it's too late to prevent the collapse of the dollar. If you examine the position of Ron Paul on immigration very carefully, you will find that at the heart of it is cutting off federally mandated welfare to illegals. His rhetoric is such as to get the support of the anti-immigration Republicans, barely. Still, it's the major gripe of the libertarian faction with his views. Libertarians are split on abortion, but since he would just take the Fed out of the loop ("it's not in the constitution" is his mantra), pro-choice libertarians can live with his anti-abortion sentiments (he is a baby doctor, after all). Having to go out-of-state to get an abortion is not as serious as murdering a million Iraqis, and I'm confident that most of our hard-working illegal aliens are quite competent to cope with the border nonsense. Plus, the poorer immigrants will suffer more from the inevitable economic recession (which may turn into the "Greater Depression"), which will drag on for years without a Ron Paul win. Peggy and I have changed our voter registration to Republican so we can vote for Dr. Paul in the primary. Actually, Ron's views match Peggy's almost perfectly, what with his concern for people who have been made dependents of the government. I'm willing to rely on private charity.
I had reached the point of telling my kids to think about leaving the country – as I understand it, many of your father's relatives waited too long to get out of Austria. Ron Paul's success has given me hope. December 22, 2007 Danford Vander Ploeg [send him mail] is a copyeditor for LewRockwell.com. Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com |
It's
easy to learn more. Peggy was one of the many who independently
invented the bumper-sticker "Google Ron Paul." Also, the website
where I work has been publishing Ron Paul's speeches and essays
for years, and they are all available in our archive. I was just
reviewing an old article from right after 9/11, and he was absolutely
prescient in predicting the war and the attacks on civil liberties.
Oh yeah, he's scheduled to be on Meet the Press this Sunday, if
you prefer video. 