Katie’s Dad 2.0

I’ve only watched about half of this so far, but I wanted to get it up before I moved on to the things I have to get done today:

Since this dialog with Ron Paul is a Google production, it gets a free pass to go well beyond YouTube’s standard 10 minute limit, running more than a full hour.  It was taken at a forum on the Google campus.

Most of what Rep. Paul says is absolutely accurate from a traditionalist perspective.  It is so correct, so spot on, that the thought of our doing some of the things he wants to do scare me half to death.  I suppose that in this day and age of political correctness, multiculturalism, diversity and grievance-group quasi-hegemony, even the most learned conservatives have to gasp now and then when the intentions of the founding fathers and the founding generation are spoken as if they are actually going to taken seriously.

The people of this nation have been bathed in false memes regarding who we are for so long that we’re going to have to overcome some serious fears if we are ever again to fully embrace and nurture the sort of liberty our ancestors fought, bled and died to establish.

Nothing that Ron Paul wants to do its practical so long as we are entrapped by the Nanny State.  In addition, even if we managed to strip away gradually all of the things that the Federal Government has been doing that fall outside the original intent of its constitutional charge, we would still have to deal with undoing the stupidification that plagues this nation’s citizenry regarding the intentions of those who gave us this nation.

The federal government was complicit in this. Like some fungus unnoticed in a damp corner, it understandably sought to expand its domination.  If we are going to reclaim what is ours, the “operating instructions” provided to us in notes on the debate over the drafting of the constitution, the Federalist Papers, Washington’s Farewell Address, and in other writings and speeches of the time will have to be re-aired and discussed broadly throughout our society.  I have not yet decided whether or not the Federal Government might have a role in the de-programming effort.  There is a part of me that thinks we should say, “you’re in large part responsible for this mess, so you’d better help us clean it up.”  On the other hand, I don’t trust the agents of government as it currently exists to do right by us under any circumstances. It almost seems as though Federal bureaucracies are entrenched in a manner by which they could survive nuclear armageddon, along with the cockroaches!

Perhaps only if the bully pulpit of the Presidency is occupied by a dedicated traditionalist like Ron Paul might we ever again have a chance to rediscover and reclaim the full pallette of freedoms that are rightfully ours.  This is reason enough to consider voting for him.

Without a patient originalist leader, too rapid shift toward putting us back on the path prescribed by our founders would surely fail.  Without the neccesary preparation, we would probably skip right past temperate liberty and further dishonor those cared deeply enough to nurture for us such a fine heritage.  Prior to any effort to re-implement our true liberty, the general citizenry must first be intellectually, morally, socially, and spiritually re-prepared to handle living with the liberties that have been so callously stripped away, particularly in my lifetime. I don’t know how this might be accomplished.  I doubt getting there by leap of faith is prudent.

All in all, I like what Paul says.  I believe in what he says.  I know that what he says is a right path for this nation.  But I don’t trust today’s Balkanized, multiculturalized, diversified, morally compromised and politically-corrected version of “the people” to be able meet the prerequisites necessary to managing this nation if the true meaning of liberty is restored.  It’s quite a conundrum.

There is a lot here that I have not written before, and I have not had much time to think it all through thoroughly.  Perhaps some of my readers would like to chime in?