Here are some excerpts from an email sent out to a group of supporters from one of our Wisconsin meetup members this week when discussing preparations for "Paint the Town Ron" this weekend. This is in response to some members expressing their fears with us putting signs up in public places. It is very encouraging and inspirational to realize the fight we are currently in and the risks that Ron Paul is taking for us by running for president on the issues that we believe in.
Like Teddy, I've had enough in my life of critics, of timid souls, of nervous Nellies -- they whine and worry, complain and criticize, but never manage to risk anything, and they never manage to DO much of anything. I am not afraid of failure, I am afraid of living to realize I did NOT even try.
And thinking of those words, I remember the Ron Paul from the 1970's and from the 1988 Libertarian campaign; he had fire and spirit then -- the kind of fire and spirit we have only recently begun seeing in him again -- and which return HE attributes to US encouraging him by our stepping out in faith and risk.
Now if Ron Paul himself felt that the "Revolution" and the PaintTheTownRon campaign elements were somehow "tarnishing" his good name, he has had MANY and frequent public opportunities recently and in the past to disavow, condemn or even slightly disapprove of them. Truly, just one strong word or public expression of such a disapproving sentiment on TV recently would have caused a significant "stop" or "pause" in these ideas. One of the major such opportunities for him was about a month ago on August 22nd, on live (and recorded) TV -- fortunately a full video record of the interview is available online and is linked directly below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oESkqd1i3IU
Dr Paul's certainly does not express any fear that these signs put up by "enthusiastic supporters" (who he refers to humorously as his campaign "leaders") will in any way "damage his reputation" (else why did he laugh and make that joke concerning the signs being posted on "telephone poles" and "freeway overpasses" -- he could have easily, even subtly expressed at least some slight disdain or disapproval; I read neither in his words or manner.)
No, the only such "concern" or "fear" you will find from the campaign or the candidate is the few sentences on the official campaign site which disavow any and all such actions for liability purposes. (And if you do not understand the liability concerns in our modern litigious society...well what can one say.)
But I think instead that your expressed "fear" (and indeed that of others, myself included) is actually quite different in nature, it is an ingrained, inherent fear of somehow brushing up against or displeasing city hall, or any other part of the "establishment" that has insinuated itself into our society in the past century. We are no longer the free men and women that our ancestors were, and we show it mostly by what we fear, we fear phantoms that live in caves halfway across the world, we fear pieces of paper being spewed from bureaucrats desks and computers; we fear being "fined" and losing even just a tiny little bit of the federal "scrip" that they condescendingly allow us to keep before they inflate it away.
Yet I think that this fear is something that is completely foreign to Dr Paul himself. Something that is completely foreign to our founding fathers and their principles. (Alas, if there were just a few more with that "Sunshine patriot" attitude 230 some years ago, we'd have Queen Elizabeth on our money right now.) So, in the end, it is a fear of taking nearly ANY risk whatsoever, no matter how little it is we are risking (many are even afraid of talking to others about Ron Paul, fearing "rejection" and "disapproval").
Think instead, of what we are in essence asking Dr Paul to risk, versus what we are willing (or willing to "allow" others) to risk.
WE are expecting Dr. Paul to literally risk his life in opposing the current war (Do any of you remember MLK? Or RFK? How about George Wallace? I do; I remember watching the news after each of those. I remember the hopes that were literally "crushed" by each of those sad events. I know that Presidential candidates and others who take positions in serious opposition to the establishment, are risking their very lives and the lives of those they love; Dr. Paul certainly knows this; his entire family knows this.)
If HE were a nervous Nellie, he would stay home and enjoy his many grandchildren; he would not risk THAT, nor any of the rest of what we are asking him to risk.
But WE are expecting him to risk that for our sakes. WE expect him then to essentially defy his entire party establishment, to fight and campaign day after wearying day, for a nearly a whole year in order hopefully, possibly, win the nomination; and to do all that ...in order to fight and campaign again and again, for another several months in order to try to win an election when the "political winds" are decidedly against his party. Then again even more remotely, but still hopefully, to take office, and to accept what is probably one of the, if not THE most grueling and wearying job in the world. And once in that job to not merely occupy the chair, no WE expect him to stand firm and almost certainly fight and almost certainly oppose both parties in both houses of Congress (and major portions of the entire federal bureaucracy) in order to fulfill his campaign promises.
And what you are claiming to be afraid of ...is what exactly was it again... that some handful of the people (locally) may do something to "damage" his reputation by some action that we, personally, by potentially violating some municipal "sign ordinance" and (face a possible personal fine for littering or some other such "peace disturbance" misdemeanor).
Now never mind that over 100 other meetup groups across the entire nation are committed to and planning to do that very same thing -- on that very same weekend -- in their local (often much larger, more populated and media saturated cities)... and you are seriously expecting me to believe that you are "concerned" that somehow, "magically," we few handful of SE Wisconsin supporters by putting up a few banners, that we will somehow seriously damage his reputation and ruin his chances of winning the election? You are actually seriously saying that?
I think the best response is to that is to paraphrase Mark 8:33.
Or ...if you are not religious, then pick your favorite Patrick Henry quotation.
But, fortunately I am not answerable to any of you. Nor is anyone else.
Each of us as individuals are responsible for our own actions, our own choices and contributions, whether in time, money, supplies and/or risks taken... or not taken.
Whether any of you like it or choose to participate in it, the PaintTheTownRon campaign *is* happening around the country this coming weekend. SE Wisconsin can choose to "bow out" or to do things in only a "minor" way. I suppose if all of the meetup groups decide to risk so little, then we will hear absolutely nothing about the whole thing, either in the local, or the national news. No TV interviews will be scheduled for Dr. Paul about it, no news articles will be written. The pundits will be free to talk all they want about the "president of the internets" and may also call him the "president of the emails" -- and they can all chuckle and go back to talking about the horse-race between Rudy and Fred, or which dress Hilary (or was it Rudy) wore at her last campaign stop.
And you can all sleep peacefully in your beds.
But Dr. Paul will have no such concerns for his reputation... he doesn;t shirk such small things. Indeed, if his reputation were that shaky or so easily damaged, then this campaign were a lost cause from the start. The campaign has liabilites, I agree, but this is not among them. His reputation will not be "sullied" by some handful of people in Wisconsin hanging some half-dozen, nay even two, or ten dozen banners.
Personally, I want to rock the boat of complacency and apathy... I plan on dumping some proverbial tea into the water this weekend! Anyone who VOLUNTARILY and with FULL UNDERSTANDING of the possible negative personal consequences and risks, yet STILL cares to join me ...those souls can "dress up like an indian" and meet me here for my midnight war planning and painting session. Those opposed can stay home and watch TV.
I am only a little man, living in a small rural county... But after this weekend is over, and I have done my own personal "utmost" -- then and only then will *I* be able to sleep peacefully, knowing I have done my part...
You each choose what you think is right and necessary, either to do, or not to do. But remember that failing to choose is also a choice.
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