Long Live The Revolution

Long Live The Revolution

By Bretigne Shaffer
Information Clearing House
Friday, August 31, 2012

I’ve seen many posts like this one today, from Antonia Litsinger:

“Well, I'm not going to get into the classic insanity mode - doing
things over and over and expecting different results. I'm done
with this whole political shit. It was fun for a while and I met a
whole bunch of great people in the liberty movement. Let the
crooks and the deviants have it. I've withdrawn my consent and
am turning my back to them all.”

This is good. This is someone waking up.

This is someone - and there are many of them - who has put
a real effort into changing things for the better through the
political system.

Many have been doing it since 2007, some even longer.

And while some will continue the fight, continue working to get
“good people” into bad offices, others are starting to look a little
deeper, are starting to recognize that it is the system itself that is
broken, not the particular individuals who happen to be heading it
up at the moment.

I shouldn’t be, but I am still surprised when I hear people urging
me to support Romney because Obama will be so much worse, or
Obama because Romney will be so much worse.

I hear this from smart people, people I respect, and I have to do
a double take because I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

I can’t believe they can’t see that both of these people - or
more accurately, the interests that support both of these people -
are phenomenally evil and that to support either one is to support
driving our country further toward a police state, aggressive
military adventurism, economic cronyism and ultimately bankruptcy.

Yet people are so tribal, and so ruled by fear.

I don’t know where the tribalism comes from. Some of it is
learned, but I fear some of it is innate, and it still astounds
me to see how powerful it is, to watch otherwise intelligent
and caring people throw their support behind what can only be
described as a fascist dictator, all because he’s “one of them”.

“He’s a Democrat and I’m a Democrat and Democrats are good!”
Or “yes, he’s awful, but the other guy is so much worse!”

It is such a powerless position to be in, and is precisely how the
power elite maintain their control over our lives - through fear.

Fear of the terrorists their own policies incited; fear of “rich”
people; fear of “illegal” immigrants; fear of the other guy who
might win if you don’t throw your support behind our equally
awful candidate.

What struck me, in reading the Tweets of those watching
the proceedings, was this:

Those who today were cheering because now “Ron Paul will
finally retire and we’ll be done with him”, or berating him
for not falling in line and supporting Romney like a good
Party Member, really don’t get it.

It’s not that they don’t “get” Ron Paul, it’s not that they don’t
agree with his message or don’t understand why so many people
are so passionate about him.

It’s not even that they don’t “get” that Romney and Obama are
essentially the same.

What they don’t get is that the point of the liberty movement is not
simply to win elections, and it is certainly not to win elections just
for the sake of winning them.

The point of the liberty movement is to bring about liberty.

And after witnessing the corruption and dishonesty of the 2008
election proceedings and now the 2012 elections so far, it just may
be dawning on more than a few in this movement that participating
in the establishment’s rigged game is not an effective way of
bringing about a free society.

If there is anything good that comes out of the Republican National
Convention of 2012, it will be this:

That the Republican Party leadership’s blatant disregard for its own
procedures, its willingness to change the rules at the last minute to
prevent an outcome it does not want, will be instructive to those
who still believe in “working within the system to change the system.”

It will push more liberty activists to start thinking of more creative
ways, more productive ways of bringing about a free society.

And it’s about time.

Many of us were cynical about building a free society by using the
machinery of the state all along. But we supported Ron Paul
because we had to say we tried.

For myself, I felt that if his presidncy was even a possibility (even
though I don’t even believe in the office of the presidency) I had
to do what I could to make it happen, for the sake of the lives that
would be saved by reining in an aggressive foreign policy if nothing
else.

And I did, and I don’t regret it. But now it’s time to get serious
about building a free society.

The illusion that we can do it through the voting booth should
by now be thoroughly discredited.

Our focus should now be on building the society we believe in - one
that is based on peaceful, voluntary interactions, where violence is
only acceptable as a response to violence.

The coercive system is failing, and it will only get worse.

It’s time for us to get to work.


Bretigne Shaffer is the author of Memoirs of a Gaijin and
Why Mommy Loves the State. She blogs at www.bretigne.com.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32314.htm