American politics in the 21st century is about soundbytes, image, and spin. That’s the only way for candidates to try to reach 300 million people in the time that they will likely be in front of them on any given day. For some candidates, the soundbyte is the length and breadth of their views on the issue. For others, that is not necessarily true. In any case, the issues that they speak to are issues of substance and there is no way to form an opinion about them unless you think them through. That might seem like stating the obvious, but here’s the rub: almost no one is thinking about issues that could profoundly affect all of us for the rest of our lives.
What most Americans are doing is repeating the soundbytes and buzz words that they hear from talking heads as if they were indisputable fact. Maybe some of them are. Maybe some are not. What is crucial is that every individual think about them critically. That means challenging the veracity of those statements and determining for yourself if they stand up to the most vigorous intellectual attack that you can mount against them.
Ron Paul’s opponents use soundbytes to discredit him and Ron Paul does likewise. He has accused Newt Gingrich of “serial hypocrisy” and accused all of his opponents collectively of being “shitzus” on cutting spending. No one should accept those allegations as true without looking into the evidence for and against them and determining for himself whether or not they are true. Part of that process must be the intellectual exercise of taking the position that they are not true and saying to Ron Paul, “Prove it. Newt Gingrich is not a hypocrite just because you said he was in a 30-second TV ad. Where is your proof? I’ll consider it and get back to you.”
I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance of mine as we prepared for a class that we take together. He asked me who I was supporting for the Republican nomination and I said that I was supporting Ron Paul. He immediately smiled and said that Ron Paul was too “crazy” for him. Not one to go on the attack just because someone disagrees with me, I calmly replied, “I hear that a lot. Which of his policies do you think are too crazy?”
I was not surprised by the blank stare that I received in response. That was followed by some stammering and searching for an answer. He finally said that it was Ron Paul’s stance on regulations. I asked, “Which regulatory issues do you disagree with him on?” More of the same stammering and searching and finally the answer was “Well, I haven’t caught up on the issues this time around yet, but I remember hearing him talk about a regulation a while back. I can’t remember which one.”
Out of the tens of thousands of pages of federal regulation, he had heard Ron Paul’s views on one of them and had concluded that he was crazy. Not misinformed. Not wrong. Not even very, very wrong. Crazy. Does that sound like a reasonable conclusion to you?
Let’s be honest. This gentleman just made up the whole “stance on regulations” answer to cover for the fact that he had no answer. He had no idea why he thought Ron Paul was crazy. He had heard it on television in a five second soundbyte, had accepted it as true without even four seconds of critical thought, and was now repeating it to other people who for the most part will do likewise.
However, the “Ron Paul is crazy” narrative is losing its effectiveness. It is getting harder and harder for his opponents to make that charge stick. After predicting the stock market crash of 1987 four years in advance and predicting the housing market collapse five years in advance, Ron Paul has emerged as the only candidate who is not crazy by Albert Einstein’s definition (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result).
So Paul’s opponents need a new buzz word. I’m sure you’ve heard it. Ron Paul is now “dangerous.” Not wrong. Not very, very wrong. Not even “crazy” anymore. Now he’s dangerous. That’s an extraordinary claim. I can’t say that I remember it ever being used against another politician. I don’t remember any politician being called “dangerous” during the Cold War, when the Russians had 40,000 nuclear weapons pointed at every major American city. But that is the word that Paul’s opponents use to describe him now. One should immediately wonder why.
Of course you have heard this word repeated by every journalist and talking head as if it were true just because some enterprising young campaign staffer put it out as a talking point. That is fine. That is how the game is played. What is important is that you don’t immediately believe it just because you heard it on television, even if you heard it from a lot of people. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not. You have to at least challenge the claim before you decide.
The new “dangerous” tag is based upon the argument that Ron Paul will not preemptively bomb or invade Iran to try to stop them from developing a nuclear weapon. His political opponents (including the other Republicans and Barack Obama) uniformly state that “We cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” The establishment candidates also assert that Iran will have a nuclear weapon as early as a year from now. That means that whatever the U.S. government is going to do about it must happen now.
Q. What exactly is the danger of electing this man? A. He will “allow” Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
Q. What can the United States do to stop another nation from developing a nuclear weapon? A. Bomb or invade them immediately and destroy their capacity to build it.
Q. What if Ron Paul was president and Iran did develop a nuclear weapon? What would happen next?
Here is where most people completely shut down and stop thinking. The standard answer is that Iran will “wipe Israel off the map” or, even more irrationally, that they will “take out an American city.” Now, I know why Ron Paul’s political opponents say those things and we’ll get to that in a minute. What I’m concerned with is this: How could any rational, average American believe them?
Let’s say that Iran does indeed develop a nuclear weapon by January 2013. They would still be decades away from an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States. However, they may be able to use it against Israel. What happens next?
Nuclear weapons are a terrible thing. I think that most people wish that they didn’t exist. I know I do. But let’s acknowledge reality. Iran could not “wipe Israel off the map” (something Ahmadinejad NEVER EVEN SAID, by the way) with one nuclear weapon. They could kill a lot of people. On the other hand, Israel has 200-300 nuclear weapons. They could wipe Iran off the map and would do so the minute that Iran launched their missile. Every square inch of Iran would be incinerated before Iran’s nuclear missile ever reached Israel, if it got there at all. That is a fact that no reasonable person could dispute. That’s without even broaching the subject of what would happen to Iran if they showed any sign of aggression toward the United States. Think about it. To say that Iran is a danger to Israel or the United States is crazy.
That raises another question. If it indeed is crazy that Iran could ever threaten either the United States or Israel, why would so many politicians and talking heads be saying it? Could it possibly be that these politicians have something to gain if the United States goes to war with Iran?
Is it possible that politicians, supported by military contractors and financial institutions that together make trillions of dollars on these wars at your expense are saying this because they want to keep making more money? Or is it more likely that even though these people will “just happen” to profit immensely from a war with Iran, that they are both sincere and correct that Iran with one nuclear bomb is a threat to Israel and the United States, that between them have tens of thousands?
Ron Paul has argued that the war rhetoric today about Iran is identical to the war rhetoric about Iraq in 2002-2003. Is he right? Aren’t the same people who told us that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” telling us the same thing now about Iran? Aren’t all of the same elements of the argument about Iraq present in the arguments for war with Iran? They are evil. They want to destroy Israel. They are developing weapons of mass destruction. There is even the same time limit. “They may have one as early as a year from now.” That’s just what they told us about Saddam Hussein. There is no time to think it over. Within a year there will be a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, possibly New York City. Haven’t we heard all of this before? Isn’t it insane to accept the same claims from the same people without question?
Conversely, isn’t Ron Paul telling us the same thing that he told us about Iraq? Exactly why should we believe the people that lied to us or at least were dead wrong about Iraq and dismiss the one man that told us the truth and was dead right about Iraq? How long will we go on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Isn’t that crazy?
Dangerous. That’s what you are going to keep hearing about Ron Paul. There is no reasonable argument to be made that Ron Paul’s foreign policy is dangerous. This is an act of desperation by people that are deathly afraid that Ron Paul is going to put them out of business (not just the war-making business, but a trillion dollars of other government waste that he’ll end in his first year as well).
They aren’t appealing to your reason. They are appealing to your emotions. They are trying to strike an irrational fear in you that will cause you to reject Ron Paul, support one of their candidates, and support another unnecessary war that they will profit from at your expense. Again. Just like Iraq. However, there is one thing that you can do to avoid being fooled again.
Think about it.
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
I think the reason they want to paint him as “dangerous” is because he no longer qualifies as “controversial”. The paid media messengers appoint the term “controversial” to those people or ideas that controvert the message they are being paid to present. When a person reaches the position of “dangerous” that means people have begun to believe him. Before he could be called controversial, now he is dangerous. That is a step up.
The reason it has the potentital to be believed is because they will be paid to repeat it over and over. There is no rational thought allowed in a socilaized environment. A rational thinker is considered dangerous to the whole social world of illusions. That is why children are taught the “virtue” of imagination and college students are taught to disparage concrete logical reason. I think we have the potential to make Ron Paul the most dangerous adversary the paid media messengers have ever encountered. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the demise of their regime?
Absolutely, great article Tom. I cannot wait to see what those who fear Ron Paul so badly bring to the table now. Fear, to be afraid of the unknown, the questionable or outright bad information.
Then we have the old bad habits of assumption, opinions and acceptance which all three only stem from no study at all and are taken on without question. Acceptance being 9/10 the law because if I accept I don’t have to go look for myself I can assume and form an opinion and these two don’t have to have facts, evidence or results to show for review. Its easy, does not take effort and I can pretend I am doing all the right things without having a certainty at all in my life.
Every person who has stood up for one of these idiots and has claimed Ron Paul as a nut bag is absolutely a very loud sign of ignorance. I take it for what it is worth because I want to know who the hell to stay clear of. That some individual with a ton of education will sit there and assume and accept with an opinion to top it off without a clue in the world is absolutely something I need to know well because my only fear is them. Ignorant people not informing themselves and making decisions based on nothing they know at all. It is false, scary as hell and this country total represents the results of this type of THINKING which has not one damn thing to do with knowing anything at all.
What is informed choice over uniformed choice anyway? What makes the difference, effects, results, what?
I have dug to the depths of hell and back and what I know and share are absolutes and people will say to me all the time I don’t know what I am talking about and when they hear me laughing long and hard they have not a clue in the world why. Because I am thanking them for identifying themselves as the ignorant ones of my nation, that either they are not willing to learn or they have totally decided acceptance over all findings. Now you tell me what is more scary?
Life is meant to be lived, explored and questioned because this is how we learn of ourselves or the other choice is to pretend what life is and never ask one damn question and when you look out your window what do you see, American the land of ignorant enslaved by their own lack of actions to stand up for themselves and that folks is the sickest joke of all.
There is no other candidate on stage today they carries a full record of total integrity besides Ron Paul, I know I looked. There is no other person on stage that has fully done his own studies and investigations and knows the source of much that ales us. Ending the Fed is no small claim, it is VITAL to the survival of life in this nation so help me God.
Wars in all honesty are not the acts that promote life at all which we are what? Debt is not a product to be proud of as the largest product around the globe and creates an entire negative effect. I ask all the time to define stupid for me and stupid people attempt to criticize me and all they are doing is exposing the truth to me and anyone else who has investigated themselves because they know and have certainties of their findings and can show them unquestionably. This goes entirely against the actions of stupidity, ignorance, no research what so ever and finally total acceptance without the work.
Not one thing on this earth has taken place without choice, NOT ONE. Who on earth makes these choices anyway? What are these choice based upon anyway? Information or the lack of and what is information, words strewn across a page or the verification of such claims?
The Declaration of Independence is the Documented truths from which we are to decide with to live as A Republic, if we refuse to use this we only refuse ourselves and the question people should ask and then locate the answer to is; is this statement true and why is it true if it is?
Ron Paul holds these same principals and values to include into all choice and this is why his choices and directions are genuine in nature because these very values and principals are of nature as LIfe which is all around us everywhere we look, to be lived, to be explored, to be allowed and this directly opposes being controlled, manipulated and lied to.
Therefore I state clearly as I am certain Ron Paul is of total sound mind and only wishes to restore our Republic by actions that support such a direction which is no claim with investigation, no opinion or acceptance. It is the absolute truth as I was able to locate it and I fully value discoveries because they share results and results flat out do not lie.
This means all the others are simply living a bogus lie inside their own heads because they did not do one bit of work for themselves at all and is why I fear them the most. The act of Democracy is 51% and 51% of ignorant determining for me can only lead to far more ignorant and this I am in total refusal of because I have decided to live as A Republic where I may say what I find, that I can show by evidence the truths that exists.
So what is it we live today in amongst 300 million people, a Democracy or a Republic? let the results speak aloud please and ignorance has been expanding for some time now, hasn’t it?
The only problem with this article, is that the very people that rely upon the 5 to 30 second sound bites repeated over and over again to form their opinions, are the same people that likely will not get through the first couple of paragraphs of this article. It isn’t written in 3 paragraphs or less, with less than 3 sentences in each and doesn’t allow for the short attention spans way way way too many people have nowadays! So – those of us that actually dig deeper and find actual facts have to present this to them in small portions. 😉
I love this article, just to make myself clear here! I have been having a back and forth with a FB friend just regurgitating the same crap discussed in this article, yet cannot specifically answer what part of Ron Paul’s foreign policy in regards to Israel she has a problem with. I provided numerous examples, videos, articles, including the one of PM if Israel stating they don’t need our money, they don’t need our troops, and they don’t need us governing them – they can take care of themselves. At that point she said she was done with politics for the night, didn’t watch them nor read what I posted, then continued to make other posts about how “Ron Paul is Dangerous”. She had supported him and just suddenly, POOF – the “he’s dangerous” rhetoric got in to her head and it has become a struggle to reason with her, especially when she can only manage to talk in generalities and not cite anything specific.
Media brainwashing at its finest, that’s for sure!
Thanks, Lori-Ann. Brevity isn’t one of my strong suits – but I’m trying to improve. 😀
If the US attacks Iran it will not be over nukes or oil. It will be because Iran threatened to sell oil with another currency other than the dollar. If the dollar fails to continue as the world’s reserve currency it will crash and the U.S won’t be able to keep printing and spending into oblivion. It’s all about money people. Follow the money and you will find the answer.
I’m sorry if I sounded off-topic in my first post. I did agree with your arguments. But, even reading it twice, I still can’t retain the substance in my head. So, I can run down the page reading your article. I can agree with your logic, admire your ability to lead your friend to question his presumptions, but still I will not retain a concrete memory of what you said.
Ron Paul gave a really short memorable answer in one of the early debates on the Iran issue. He said something, like “Iran can’t even process their own oil and you want us to worry about the possibility that they might develop a nuclear weapon? What are they gonna do with it if they get one? They can’t use it! And Israel has 2-300 nuclear weapons! Everybody around them has nuclear weapons! What difference does it make if Iran gets one?”
Now, I have just read your entire article again. I enjoyed it again. I remember bits and pieces of your conversation with your friend and I marvel at your ability to draw your friend to the realization that he is basing his assertions on gossip rather than facts. But, I do not remember the details of what you said to support Ron Paul’s position of not actually being dangerous but just being painted as dangerous because the MSM wants to rationalize their rejection of Ron Paul as a viable Presidential candidate. I do not know why I cannot remember the details. I only know, I cannot remember them. I fear, that my memory may be a little more like the average voter than yours. So, I continue to post my observations so that you may know, that though the rest of us may seem unconcerned, it is not that we are unconcerned. It is that we don’t know what to do with our concern. We are in perilous danger and no one knows who to trust or what to do. The socialists have mesmerized the culture and the people who have been elected into positions of public trust are very graciously leading us to the slaughter. Yet, they will likely get elected again because they are leading us very graciously.
It is up to those of you with the connections within the Ron Paul band wagon to reach the people very much like me. Yet, not so much, in that I do study, I do read, I do fight the fight. I am convinced we absolutely need Ron Paul to get elected. Therefore, I continue to allow myself to be used as a guinea pig. I try to give feedback. I come from the other side of the fence. I come in peace. I am looking for solutions. I am not a socialist. I live in a socialized world. My family still thinks Ron Paul is crazy and they will soon begin to think he is dangerous. I am hoping to convince them otherwise. I need simple one-liners to be able to do that. So quick, in three sentences or less: Why is he not dangerous? 🙂
I do laugh at myself you know. I am very intense sometimes. But, I want to do something to change what is happening. It is not right that people aren’t allowed to know the truth about Ron Paul. I know this can be done in such a way that people can begin to trust him. Solid memorable sound bytes are possible — did I not remember Ron Paul’s “safe from Iran” speech from the debate? Instead of continuing to hope that 50 million people will start making critical examinations of claims made by paid media messengers, please try to accept the limitations of those 50 million people and speak to them in short memorable sound bytes so that we can get Ron Paul elected! We want them to FEEL GOOD about marking the Ron Paul box on the election ballot. We can educate in sound bytes as easily as the MSM they have “educated” people to believe lies in their sound bytes. Surely, we can educate people to believe the truth in sound bytes? Its nice that you can prove it in an intense debate. But, for the 50 million voters, won’t you please develop 3 or 4 sentences per issue that will convince all 50 million voters that they can trust Ron Paul? Is he safe? Is he wise? Is he strong? Will I be able to support myself and my family if I elect him? I believe he is all those things. So, just answer those questions in two or three sentences for every issue. And he will be our next President. I would like for Ron Paul to become very dangerous to the MSM bank financed regime. Don’t worry about the argument. Just give the reason he is safe, he is wise, he is strong.
On Iran:
He is safe because he will not engage in combat with Iran unless Iran initiates a war with us.
He is wise because he knows that Iran doesn’t have the technological capacity to harm us with a nuclear weapon and he can trust Israel to maintain a close watch with their own arsenal of 200-300 nuclear weapons.
He is strong because he will maintain a strong defensive weapons system to protect our borders from outside attack and use our satelite information systems to monitor any potential threat.
He will help us provide for our families by refusing to send our sons into unnecessary wars, refusing to use our money for unnecessary war machinery, and releasing our own oil resources so we can develop our own property providing jobs and fuel.
Simple, simple – I know. But, in the long run, isn’t this more effective? Do we really need to re-hash the arguments for the 50 million people? Don’t the arguments get in the way of the message? What is the message you want the world to hear about Ron Paul? How is he safe? How is he wise? How is he strong? How is he trustworthy? How is he dependable? How is he honorable? We need our messaging to match the character of Ron Paul and he will win the election.
Actually Ron Paul is an example of integrity, but since most are not familiar with this concept it is tough for them.
Ron Paul will provide for us an example that teaches us to stand as was meant to. Meaning no matter the opposition principals are primary and no better choice can be made.
Ron Paul has shown unquestionably it is not about the money and is about what we accomplish by the acts we perform.
All of these have actions that back them, results of such acts exist and there for the truth shall set of free because pretending is way overrated.
What does restore America mean to you?
What does restore a Republic mean to you?
Who supports these concepts by actions?
Does any other by record?
How hard can we make it?
Ron Paul represents the 99% (though many don’t realize it). He represents an IDEA. He represents FREEDOM, LIBERTY, SELF RELIANCE, RESPONSIBILITY. The other candidates, including the current usurper in Chief, represent the 1%. Since there are many more of us, WE can rally around Ron Paul, and change the face of the world. Ron Paul said, “I am not interested in winning to be President. I am interested in winning to change history.” When he wins, history will show that the 1% are not the rulers but rather WE THE PEOPLE who the Constitution was written to be the guide of government for, are the rulers. The question…do we continue down the road to slavery? Or do we allow a true abolitionist to free us all from the chains of bondage that the Federal Reserve and world banksters have placed around the necks of every man, woman and child on this PLANET? THAT, my friends is the real crux of the matter. ARE WE GOING TO BE SLAVES for the 1% or are we going to have a planet of FREEDOM for the 99%. YOU CAN DECIDE, and say screw what “they” want! . RON PAUL 2012, 2016 RAND PAUL 2020, 2024!
Very well said Mark, a truth we can visualize should we choose to do so.
Thank you.
Now what do we do to convince the other 37% of people that they have been brainwashed and need to do more research? What is our best tactic? One thing from the article and a couple comment posts is that many of us feel strongly for Dr. Paul and his positions after doing our research, but those who do not get the message feel almost as strongly towards all the brain washing tactics. The major message of Dr. Paul is the very concept, how to get Americans to wake up and think for themselves.
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