Lessons on the Road to Liberty

The examples of how they steal elections are now thick upon the ground. Now, the most credulous and trusting have to see that elections are easily fixed. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now the swath of states that comprise Super Tuesday, the number of elections stolen is mind boggling. We can still elect Ron president but elections are a problem we need to solve.

That is one issue. More follow.

Today, February 6th, is the first day of the real Revolution, the final phase of the First American Revolution of 1776. This is the moment that will take us to the destination of an America where the people govern themselves. Do you want to be free? Do you understand that freedom has nothing to do with life style? You thought you were free but instead have been a slave shackled by an illusion of prosperity. To be a revolutionary you need to lose your illusions.

Like the issue of stolen elections the truth is less comfortable but only the truth allows you to fight effectively. There are problems but those can be solved if we have the facts. Hierarchies intentionally begin limiting what people know because, 'they know better.'

We are facing a multi-front war that demands the open and rapid sharing of information and creates the solution by producing the alternative that will displace the concentration of power that begot the problem originally. This can only happen through dispersed action from multiple sources, a guerrilla war fought out peacefully using the tools we already possess.

No matter what, a hammer remains a hammer and you cannot use it to remove the splinter from your finger. Your chosen tool matters; it determines your ultimate outcome in advance. Forms of human organization are tools. Centralizing authority and power creates an attractive nuisance that will eventually destroy freedom because the least ethical will have it at all costs.

In the 1970s the Libertarian Party was formed to work for the freedom that was then clearly slipping though the fingers of Americans. Many of its founders had experienced the disappointment of the failed Goldwater Revolution. In case you did not know the LP was founded on a mailing list made up from Goldwater activists and its founder had been the head of Young Republicans for Goldwater at MIT.

By 1971 the level of frustration with the War in Vietnam and US economic policy was mounting. Nixon, a Republican, had delivered us up yet again to the corporations and the continuation of war that enriched them. You can read more about the specifics in the chapter I wrote on the subject, Libertarian History.

The Libertarian Party started out as a decentralized hub, a grassroots organization run by activists. Our assumption was that we could do it ourselves. We believed and we worked. Then, there was no professional or want-to-be professional cadre; people from all walks of life came together. The beginning of the end of our revolution began with the election of Edward H. Crane, III as its national chairman in 1974 at the Dallas Convention.

Crane immediately asserted control in all directions. He tried but failed to control the candidacy of Roger MacBride for President; Roger was then producing 'Little House on the Prairie.” He did not miss in 1980.

Roger had made one critical mistake. He introduced Crane to Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries. Koch Industries is probably the largest privately owned oil company in the world. It was Koch money that started Cato Institute; the Kochs are intimately connected to the Bush White House.

The issue central to how the Revolution will operate is hierarchy vs. networked hub. You determine the outcome when you choose.

The decentralized hub is a network that freely shares information and resources. In the Ron Paul Revolution the decision of which projects to support is made by people either volunteering or not, donating or not. That is a direct application of the power of individual choice. Individual choices, made with clear knowledge.

Organizational tools can also be proprietary, effectively owned by its management. Those who want to participate then know the limitations they accept. We see this with most of the Ron Paul Projects, from the Toolbar to the Granny Warriors. They offer a project; others support or decline to support, their choice. That has worked well, too. The information is available going in and no one presumes to speak for others who have not authorized that on their behalf. It is transparent, consensual, and cooperative.

For freedom to work, as the universal principle enabling human action, we must all have the truth and the freedom to act. The truth allows us to make the right choices; centrists want to control information and become a priesthood who decides for you. They take from us the essential tools of autonomy. When the people have the truth they can govern themselves and that is what you have been doing in the Ron Paul Revolution. It has been glorious to experience, affirming the power to each of us.

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