Why I Will Only Vote for Ron Paul

I came to a decision a few months ago concerning the 2012 Presidential elections. It was a little hard to admit, but I was gonna stick with it: I wasn’t  going to vote for the president. I had to amend my decision down to a single rogue factor, however, and that factor is Ron Paul. I will only vote in the presidential elections if Ron Paul’s name is on the ballot.

There are several reasons, and most of them aren’t about his politics or his promises. I’ll explain.

First reason: Out of every candidate I’ve seen casting their name into the ballot, his is the only one with any experience worth getting elected for. He’s a doctor, an accomplished congressman, a veteran, a volunteer, a civil advocate, and an author. He’s spent decades voting and serving in the House of Representatives. And believe it or not, he’s a fantastic speaker, when he gets the chance. Most of the other guys and gals running have, at most, two equal qualities and experiences.

Second reason: He’s the only candidate who hasn’t changed stance on a policy since campaigning back in I don’t even know when he started. He’s got a clear record of Pro-life, Libertarian, Constitution-based leadership, and while the media makes that out to be absolutely crazy, it’s actually all the things a President is supposed to advocate, and despite losing a huge number of initial voters, he hasn’t flip-flopped on any of it. That is trustworthiness, and it’s officially become rare.

Third reason: Most candidates promise to fix the country. They’re going to lower taxes, add more Federally-implemented policies, pull the troops back, and hand every single U.S. citizen a hundred dollars. The only problem is, no one can possibly do all of those things in a single term, and everybody knows it. So most voters will cast based on race, religion (or lack of), running party, or how awesome his public speaking skills are. Well, the days for all those shallow decisions are over, because unless something drastic happens to this country, we’re screwed. Paul is promising an end to the swiftly-evolving-to-Socialist-reign of the Federal government, the Reserve, the forced Health Care, and unconstitutional taxes. (I’m linking straight to his site, because that’s where you can read up on everything without a bias.) And all of these things can be done within three years. In a previous post, I spoke about how uncomfortable a lot of those policies would be, but I encouraged them, because we need an actual UNDO, not a fix, or a patch, or a band-aid.

Fourth Reason: I will not vote for someone who will continue to ruin the country. When I voted last time, I cast a vote for John McCain, because, I figured, he would probably do less harm to the U.S. than Mr. Obama. I don’t know which would have been the case, but I really didn’t trust either one. That, I realize now, was a wrong decision. As an American who loves his country, I wish I could take that vote back. I won’t contribute to the inward destruction of my country’s rights and civil liberties. I don’t trust any other candidate to protect those liberties, because I’m pretty sure no other candidate cares about the country more than themselves.

I’m willing to be proved wrong, because I am not very knowledgable about politics. But I’m writing this as an average American citizen, who works for a living and pays his rent every month, and doesn’t want to witness a total collapse of the government, anarchy, and a war on U.S. soil. I’m asking for people to stop voting for their donkeys and elephants, for their religious beliefs, for their favorite skin colors, for their best public speaker, or for what almost every media outlet will tell them. I’m asking you to do your research, make a choice based on what is best for EVERYONE ELSE, and then vote with a clear conscience and the attitude of a blessed and proud American citizen.

I know I won’t make the same mistake I did last time. Will you?

How to Kill America

I never liked watching the news. There is constantly an overwhelming sense of doom and hopelessness that makes me cringe at every false smile and 3-D scene change to a useless, foul, tasteless story. So I turned to the internet, putting up with its more-than-coincedental leftist slant in order to read the ACTUAL news (e.g. reports on Iran and Palestine, and not the retarded Kardashian wedding). It worked. Less commercials, more real news that I cared about, and the events happening globally.

But when I began seeing this brand new “Occupy Wall Street” movement- reading about it, hearing about it, seeing it on the social networking sites- and I realized that any chance of redemption for America as a country is gone. We’re on a decline, and we’re not getting out. I could blame Obama, but he’s just a player in the grand scheme, and probably doesn’t even know what he’s doing.

I’m laying this out as a sad, terrifying sort of How-To Guide for Idiots. Unfortunately, I have a feeling it already exists.

Step 1: Numb Everyone (Complete)

So you’re an average American named, statistically, “Jake.” You make $60k a year and are currently paying off a house. Maybe have a wife and a few kids, two cars, a dog, probably a degree, and you’re steadily filling up the 401k. It’s the good life, and when the kids move out and graduate, it’ll be even better. It’s the American dream, right?

I haven’t even gotten there yet. Besides the movies you see regularly, there’s the Netflix subscription, the TiVo tapings, the 2,000 TV channels, your favorite sports teams and coaches, celebrity news, music artists, and actors. There’s the smartphone that never leaves your hip, constantly filtering a steady stream of music, social activity, games, and media in general directly to you from anywhere. Thanks to the internet, we can never want for anything again, unless it becomes an addiction (which is RARE, right?).

And don’t even forget about your routine. The second you wake up, the media bombardment begins, with the book in the bathroom, the music in the car, the computer at work, the phone on break, the TV at home, and the Xbox before bed. If you’re “religious”, you go to church on Sunday, and rush back home before football comes on.

Notice a pattern? Every single “activity” in your life is called “passive entertainment.” We’ve finally achieved what The Matrix predicted, except instead of robots, we plugged ourselves in and now we don’t wanna leave. The rules are different these days: Get comfortable, Have fun, Die. We’re raised that way, we’re taught it’s the norm, and we teach it to our kids so it gets perpetuated.

Again, it’s easy to blame things like a more socialist government, benefits for being wealthy, and the non-stop joyride life looks like once you stop working hard and “live to play.” But in reality, we have to blame ourselves for not doing something about it. Because we are our government, and our entertainment industry, and, I believe, the majority of our world’s intelligent population.

Step 2: Hate Yourself and the rest of Humanity

Okay, so now you’re a bloated, cancer-breeding potato husk literally rotting to death from entertainment. The government official you elected is on his third extra-marital affair apology, your child is racking up lawsuits from the parents of his friends from public school, and coincidentally, you don’t have a job anymore (thanks, Obama.) So, from the comfort of your two-story home, spoon in hand and raised anticipatorily above your half-gallon bowl of Jello-fries, you come to the bold conclusion that oil companies and rich people have it in for you.

No, seriously. The result of most of your problems are the people who a) Give you a job and/or b) supply you with the necessary means of getting there.

This is, naturally, a logical assessment. Since you don’t understand either of these things, it is a good idea to blame them for most of the world’s epidemics and crises. So from this epiphany of genius proportions, two more things send you down an unpaved, psychologically-damaging underpass, the first of which results in you hating humans.

Humans, after all, incessantly pollute their planet (if you could even call it “theirs”), kill the creatures with which they co-inhabit the planet, drain the planet of necessary nutrients and minerals, murder each other, and then themselves die all over it. If evolution is true (like they taught me in school), then I’m no better than a crap-tossing baboon with a purple butt who also evolved from a combination of headlice and magic. So who am I to impose my human will upon the beasts and vermin of the earth? I am a pathetic meatbag bred for nothing else but mindless sex and the animalistic necessity to survive. This majestic planet has been revolving for billions of years without me, and I’ll never live it down if it suddenly stops because of my carelessness.

So to impose another will, there form groups of people intent on proving just how catastrophic humanity is to the planet. We march to save the dolphins, the eagles, the rare and precious snow leopards of Eastern Asia. We spend millions upon millions of dollars protecting mountain ranges and coral reefs (my plane makes a small impact getting to my vacation, so it’s okay), wage campaigns against oil companies (except the ones in the Middle East, because they’re Muslim, and they might get offended, and also because how else will I get to the rallies DUH), and pretty much anything else that isn’t directly interfering with my current comfort level, made into the giant to be overcome, the all-powerful demi-god with cruel intentions and foul works at hand Hollywood so eagerly invites me to slay.

People will die, and governments will fall, and the sun black out in the sky, but the mighty kingfisher will live forever.

Step 3: Make sure there is no longer any doubt that the world revolves around You

So who owns those cursed airlines, anyway? And who keeps selling me gas for my F-450? Which cursed villain contributes to the budgets of that one company that hires people associated with other people whose rats roam the halls of a different company which builds smartphones made from PLASTIC? You know what? It’s those darn rich people. And guess what an internet infograph told me? You never will. Okay okay, hold on, lemme check my smartphone….okay, it says, AND I QUOTE, “Rich people pay less taxes.” Yeah. Can you believe that crap? That’s bull. I hate rich people.

I wouldn’t put it past you, but I’m hoping you aren’t talking like this in front of your boss. You know, the guy who can hire and continue funding your lifestyle with his gads and gads of money. The guy who doesn’t tell you how to blow it all on coffee and the cellphone bill you just used to look up that useless information, even though you only BARELY earned it because of all your complaining. So you take one last sip of over-priced espresso, throw your plastic cup in the trash, and decide it’s time to go CAMPING. On someone else’s property. Someone has to know how bad rich people are, and there’s a whole bunch of your friends already downtown wearing tie-dye and having sex in tents every night, and it’ll be nice to have the cameras aimed at you, for once. Maybe you’ll even get to say something. Even better, a cop might pepper-spray you and give you the opportunity to defy authority without repercussions. That would be awesome.

I’d like to point out, I’ve heard some very good reasons for the Occupy movement. Maybe even the reason it started in the first place. But the people actually camping there have no idea why they’re there, other than a public forum (not online, (sometimes)) and need to hear all these good reasons. Because they just look foolish. “Down with big government”, they scream. “Share the wealth!” “I’m homeless and suddenly I’m getting free food! All I have to do is wear tight pants and not shave!” And the world looks on, grinning at the antics of students who never knew the true meaning of poverty and oppression. You’re unhappy you voted the wrong guy in and keep doing so, but you still want the same privileges he promises. The meaning of that “cake” analogy suddenly means something. But you’re too far gone.

Step 4 (Last Stage): Repeat The Last Three Steps Over and Over

History repeats itself. It’s been said over and over. Check out ancient Babylon sometime. Greece. Rome. Great Britain. Russia. Germany. People asked for it. They got it. They hated it. They couldn’t do anything about it anymore. And they fell; they fell so very, very hard.

The Solution

It’s not the end yet. We have a small chance to turn back around. No more bandages. No more patches. No more stitches. People like Ron Paul are called crazy for doing something drastic and painful, but you know what? This country needs something painful. It needs to wake up and feel the pinch of problems. Turn America AROUND. Get it back on track again. Vote for someone who will really change things. Stop voting for the person who will give you the most. Vote for the guy who is promising you the least, and making you work for what you want. Vote for the President who cares about the country (which is his JOB) and not about you, which is YOURS.

Come on, America. We aren’t that far gone yet. You just have to make a hard choice. If you care so much about the world your children live in, make sure they get one that won’t enslave them, kill them, and then salute the memories of a nation so selfish, it murdered itself in the name of entertainment.

A Return to Faith

How often have I been completely involved in something- an art project, a business idea, a job duty – and just dropped it halfway through, from lack of motivation or loss of interest or whatever, and walked away? How many times? How many people have I let down because of this fault?

Too many; as a single answer to those questions- too many times, too many people. More than I’d like to think about.

But I have to think about it! I cannot change otherwise. I cannot continue causing pain, frustration, hurt, because of my selfish carelessness. And I’m determined to start with God. Every other reason has failed.

Reason figures heavily into this, too. I enjoy tacking qualities onto myself- ”Reasonable” would be one I’d automatically assume to my character. Yet, reasoning is not something I do well, and of late, has been ignored almost completely. However, of all the things reason brings to a life, Christianity is never included. God- the idea of a higher, greater “being” who writes books and sacrifices children- is both ridiculous and unreasonable. We were warned, anyway:

We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.

1 Corinthians 4:10

Stupid is the word that best describes the Christian; chasing after something that can’t be seen, heard, felt, studied, or understood; wanting a relationship with the spirit of the man who died two thousand years ago; reading a book so full of obvious allegory, and then standardizing modern life through it- it’s moronic.

But so is the notion that 80 years is all we get to show for ourselves. So is the idea that the amazing world we inhabit, and the countless undiscovered wonders of our universe blew into existence by mistake. And, for the record, the idea that just because WE can’t understand something means it doesn’t exist, is the MOST IDIOTIC thing we continue to believe so far.

And what of this foolishness? What great things are we told we’ll do as Christians- senseless, out-of-our-minds Christians?

For consider your calling, brothers:not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

We can actually boast about our apparently low mental health, that God let us seem foolish to everyone! That’s meta-stupid!

Anyways, these are thoughts I’ve continually had, and which I’m facing once more. Each time I offer to share the good news of God, and of His Son Christ, and the debt we owe them, and the life we could have with them, I get to thank God for allowing me to be foolish enough to do it. Because I couldn’t when I was cool.

(I was never cool. I just thought I was.)

I’m Not Listening

Are you saying something?

 

Blastoid.

Ranting. Confusing. Precocious. Calligraphy.

Frail. Monotone. Sweat-inducing. Railroads.

Monolithic. Endeavoring. Causality. Flamethrower.

Phantasmic. Flirtatious. Sagacious. Reasonable.

Lifting. Collapsing. Regarding. Mudflaps.

Speakeasy. Cheaply. Magnanimous. Rapscallion.

Bombastic. War-fueled. Gyration. Rambunctious.

Fatal. Garnered. Holistic. Icecream.

Pretentious. Laughable. Salutary. Impersonation.

Rendition. Voracious. Abomination. Quasi-intelligible.

Because

Are you still there?

Sad Song, Messy Room

I like my internet radio. I used Pandora for about a year and a half, and then tried out Last.fm (which turned out to be pretty poorly designed and run…at least in a browser) so I only use it on my Xbox now and have switched back to Pandora indefinitely.

Anyways, I’ve found a group of artists who work well together in two seperate stations: Lifehouse, and The Script. You’ll get a bit of both in each other’s station, but alone and apart, both channels, in their own right, are exquisite. Lifehouse contains the Christian-based morality as their lyrics display continual relationship frustration, while The Script is just woeful and apathetic in their grief.

I’m continually taken aback by how personal experience can be brought back to life in the words of a song- and while, though not every song can sum up a complete experience- a channel of like songs can unitedly specify singular events wholly unrelated to their supposed intentions. And while stewing in this bubbling cauldron, savoring the bitter memories being stirred to the top, and contemplating the pathos I’ve commiserated in for months, I came to another frail conclusion:

I should probably clean my room now.

It’s a relationship, those two: Sad music = dirty living quarters. And adversely: Clean room = brighter outlook, lack of apathy, and change of audio genre. I’ve connected them in the past, and then quickly forgot the equation. Perhaps I’ll re-introduce some education into my life and begin to pick up where I left off, which would be my sock drawer.

Now, where did I leave my business-casuals? Oh, under the chair?

I’ll get those later.

Somewhere

Why does location have so much to do with your emotions, moods, and habits? Ever thought of that? Here’s hold on…let me start a new paragraph.

Okay, so here’s what’s going on: I’m having a hard time starting over. I feel like I’m still stuck in the same place, still caught in an endless loop of ups and downs, still gonna be here doing the same old thing next year, and the year after, and the year after that. I need a change of scenery. A new plot of land to till. A restart back to factory settings. I gotta break free of this deadly cycle and move.

So I’m going to move. Still working on the where, and when that’s settled, the how and when. I’m thinking mountains. I’m thinking inland. I’m thinking Colorado. Can’t really go wrong there, I guess.

Yeah. So that’s it. I’ll write more about it when I know more. But man, being stuck in one place for too long does stuff to you. It makes you jittery, and then causes you to end the jitters by getting fat. I don’t wanna get fat, or complacent, or “used to it”. So I’ll see you around, Florida. Hasn’t been all that great here, so….

Ptttthhhhpppppttt. Jog on.

New

Have you ever imagined how your life would be if you broke ties with everyone you knew, left your job, your house, your family, and started fresh somewhere else? Maybe you haven’t, but I do. All the time. I try to picture what would change in the long run; what would become an old habit I’d discarded, and what would be introduced as a new necessity. What if, by moving to an alien location, I become a different person?

I think it’s a good idea sometimes. Maybe starting over, where I’m out of my element and out of place, is for the best. Maybe, by having nothing familiar but God to comfort me, I’ll finally begin to cling to Him with desperate need.

Maybe I have nothing else to live for.

Help

A cry for help often goes unheard. But sometimes, it is heard, and just ignored. Once, I was absolutely positive I heard a voice behind my house, yelling in pain for help. I ran to assist, but I could find no one. I didn’t want to leave, because I was unsure whether the call was imagined, or if the person in distress was now unconscious and unable to identify their location.

What would happen if you saw someone fall from a building, and upon arriving at the point of impact, found nothing out of the ordinary? Would you shrug your shoulders, mutter about the “off day” you’re having, and walk away? Would you shake your head, kick yourself for being so stupid, and chalk up imagined visions to experience, vowing never to fall for that trick again? Isn’t t there something wrong with walking away- just giving up -on the trust you put in yourself and your senses?

I, for one, am determined never to be so numb to my gut instinct, my senses, my conscience- that I ignore the possibility of saving someone’s life. And I will never lie down and call it quits on someone…even if they quit first.