It was 2005-ish when a loved one had me read an article from a man he called “The Honorable Ron Paul.” I had never heard of him. Though I had been involved in local politics, I did not care for politicians at the federal level.
Within three years, I helped organize local groups in support of Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential run, helped organize what was chronologically the first Tea Party gathering of the contemporary Tea Party movement, and then later even moved quite a ways away and upended my life in an effort to advance the goals of that campaign.
I would run for office myself on the same principles and would spend a great deal of time advancing them in small brushfires of teaching, advocacy, and activism. I watched the rippling effects of the 2008 Ron Paul campaign give birth to 1.) the Tea Party movement, 2.) the Bitcoin industry, 3.) the Trump 2016 campaign, and 4.) Trump presidency.
A Paulian Principle
Ron Paul had a principle he often followed as a Congressman. He would say that if others in Congress voted as he did, that the American people would have a Congress that promotes freedom. He was often the lone “no” vote. That did not stop him from being the lone vote.
Four years from now, Donald Trump will be one man in American history. We are not effective on our own. We are effective in whose lives we touch and who we inspire to do likewise. Accordingly, we may choose to be like the Ron Pauls of the world and the Donald Trumps of the world — men who sacrifice much in life in order to speak the truth and promote the truth.
I do not consider Donald Trump and Ron Paul to be perfect replicas of each other. I consider both to have run for President with a willingness to be Molotov cocktails for the American people to throw at their establishment class, to paraphrase Michael Moore’s 2016 movie TrumpLand.
If we recognize the role of such men when they stick their necks out there, and we appreciate that, then we must recognize our role in the situation as well.
A Troubling Trend
Over the past several years, millions of conservatives, libertarians, devout religious people, sensible moderates, sensible liberals, and other upstanding Americans moved from the state of California that I call home.
They, then, proceeded to do exactly what they did in California that helped turn California into a grade A crap-hole: nothing.
The most prosperous and resource-rich corner of the American Empire, the state of California, can legitimately be called a grade A crap-hole. Next to the largest body of water on the planet, California has a drought. Next to the largest body of water on the planet, the fire hydrants are empty. The list of comparable examples is long.
Your Disobedience Is Needed
I have done some nasty things in politics. I have burned do-nothing office holders who were rubber stamps for Newsom, but who would play nice in the media on Fox News. I have burned Republicans, so-called conservatives, and so-called libertarians.
It is not because they were bad people. It is because they refused to be anything but rubber stamps. They refused to use their role to act like they cared.
We live in a “just doing my job” era, yet we were handed a “jury nullification” country by our founders. Every individual has the right, the authority, and the power to nullify the unjust behaviors of the system in his own life. Often he is able to nullify far beyond his own life. Often he is able to even do a solid for another person by being willing to nullify in his own life.
That does not begin to take into account what one is able to do by seeking to be a good person as widely and as actively as he can.
We are a few weeks into a new presidential administration. It might not hurt if you did a few things in the name of freedom that caused others to call you extreme. It might not hurt if you did a few things in the name of freedom that made other people threaten to sue you. It might not hurt if you paid another person’s mortgage this month. Or if you left an obscenely large tip, or if you took a stranger out for a meal and told him your rough and tumble story of how Jesus has changed your life, or if you ran a serious bid for office against a petty tyrant that needs to be challenged.
The pen is mightier than the sword — it might not hurt if this the year you finally get that book out of you, a book that you can use to change hearts and minds. I will even help you with that. It might not hurt if this was the year that every member of your local board (of whatever topic or locality you care about), if this was the year that every one of them learned your name and what you stood for.
Your Local Public Servants Should Know You And What You Are About
I have stood before many right-of-center audiences in California and told them how ineffective of activists they are if 1.) they are not known by their local bureaucrats 2.) by their first and last name, 3.) to that point that their most pressing issues are known by the bureaucrat.
If that does not describe them, then they have no right moving from California to another place and claiming they tried.
Waving a few signs and yelling at a few meetings is hardly effective. If every single person on a board that you care about does not know you by name and exactly where you stand on key issues, then you have not even gotten into the water yet. You are still dipping your toe in, and pathetically so I might add, for the hour is late in our descent into tyranny and you seem to neither realize your level of responsibility nor your level of potential effectiveness.
There are only a few Ron Pauls. There are only a few Donald Trumps. The rest do not take things that seriously.
For The “Voting Doesn’t Matter” And “Voting Is Violence” Crowd
And let me pre-empt those who write me with things like “bless your heart, you still think voting matters,” or “How sweet, sugar, you still think Trump is actually not one of them.”
It is not about them. It is about you.
If you want more freedom, live a life that promotes freedom in all corridors around you. Yes, that includes knowing the activities and personalities affecting local boards that cover matters that are important to you. It includes supporting good guys with money and time and inviting them over for dinner and introducing them to other good guys who can help them. Have you ever invited a local board member over for dinner? Why not. They might not come, but you are going to suddenly have their ear in a way that you otherwise would not have, simply by asking. I am not just talking about the friendly members either. I am also talking about the guys who might not like you if they got to know you.
Who knows, they also might really like you if they got to know you.
Are You Tithing?
If you want to write me “voting doesn’t work,” please attach your thirty-year political resume to back up your opinion. I will put my resume against anyone who disagrees with me. Voting does work. And of course it does not stop with voting. If you think the few hours you spent researching candidates and the hour you wait in line to vote at oh-dark-hundred hours, three times a year makes you a candidate for a good citizen award, you are woefully mistaken.
That level of participation earns you an F. You suck as a good citizen if that is how you see your needed level of commitment. Freedom requires a tithe of your time and money from you. Your statist adversary recognizes this and tithes accordingly.
The Silent Majority
Meanwhile, droves leave California for other places that they will mess up with their silence and inaction.
And no one says to them “Dear upstanding citizen, you are the problem. You and your silent majority ways are the problem. You live in an era of considerable threat to freedom, and you walk through the snake-filled grass barefoot like nothing could go wrong.”
Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi are not the problem. You are the problem. They are making themselves and their friends into billionaires as an idle population lets them. Someone is going to play their role. It might as well be them. And every great culture crumbles when someone agrees to play your role, the role of silent, all-knowing, inactive, wise one.
I have had dinner with you hundreds of times. I have been in your home thousands of times. I have talked to you on the phone thousands of times. I know you. I know how you think. I know how you justify your inaction.
I am here to say you are the problem.
A Problem With Focussing On Politicians
The more we talk about the Ron Pauls and Donald Trumps of the world and make it about them, the more we are likely to miss. The more we make it about how their example can be an inspiration to each one of us in our own lives, the more we are likely to grow.
What have you done for the cause of freedom lately? What have you done for the cause of freedom today?
Your tithe is needed.
Your ten percent of time each week. And your ten percent of your income.
And I am not even talking about you needing to bring down the Fed or to reform the tax code. If that is your calling, get to it. There are a thousand projects in the world around you, things that can truly change your life and the lives of others, things that can change the world around you as you know it. They are little ten-second endeavors and bigger ten-month endeavors. If you are serious about freedom, your tithe is needed.
If you are not serious, just say that to yourself and those around you. Just say the words, “I am moving to Florida because I am not that serious of a person. I will move away from Florida when that gets bad five or ten years from now, and will just seek out the easiest place to live that I can mooch as much out of before I move on with my life.”
If that is you, just say it. That’s okay. It will help both yourself and others have greater clarity for who you are and what you are about.
And if you have moved to Florida already, don’t feel bad. Just resolve today to stop doing nothing.
It’s Bigger Than The Presidency; It’s About Your Individual Life
The atmosphere has changed in America. It has changed even in cities such as San Francisco where I live. So much of the nonsense of just a few months ago, nonsense that has been dealt with for many years, was suddenly been deemed irrelevant and nonsensical. People started acting like grown adults again. Trump’s entry into the Oval Office did that.
That can be a four-year thing. Or it can be a thing that lasts much longer. That has little to do with who Trump’s successor is. It has a great deal more to do with how you conduct yourself in your life. Will you make this shift into a thing that encourages you further in the world around you?
That is a question each freedom lover should today be asking.
