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{"id":2825,"date":"2012-01-22T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-22T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/01\/citizen-ron-paul.html"},"modified":"2012-01-22T15:15:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-22T15:15:00","slug":"citizen-ron-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/01\/citizen-ron-paul.html","title":{"rendered":"Citizen Ron Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Whenever I come close to thinking about supporting Ron Paul as a candidate, I think of this episode of the sitcom Frasier: <\/p>\n

To me, Ron Paul appeals to four basic types of folks.\u00a0 One, the type that is fed up with everything in our government, our society, our country, and feels betrayed by either party\u2019s lackluster attempts to hold firm to those values we share as believers in Christ.\u00a0 Two, those who just hate America, including those in America who hate it all the while sucking from the bloated tit of American prosperity and freedom, while laughing all the way to the bank at Paul\u2019s relentless insistence that America is the prime cause of problems and evil in the world.\u00a0 Three, those \u2013 particularly young people \u2013 with a culturally imposed tendency to want a \u2018rage against the machine\u2019 candidate because, well, raging against the machine is always good. And finally, young people and older ones who appreciate the \u2018right to hedoism\u2019 that libertarianism promises, most prominently manifested in Paul\u2019s desire to legalize drugs.<\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s easy to see his appeal in a country that is unraveling, shredding its Christian roots, and becoming increasingly hostile to the Faith of my fathers.\u00a0 Still, I also have to keep things in perspective.\u00a0 Paul lives in an world of self-isolation.\u00a0 To him, he alone (and possibly his son, Rand), are the only ones in Washington who aren\u2019t screw ups causing all the problems.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a firm foundation for sound leadership.<\/p>\n

In addition, many of his takes on history, such as his support for Southern\u00a0State\u2019s Rights<\/a> [to own human slaves] or how the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved<\/a>, verge on the fantasy and\u00a0certainly have no place in the world of reality.\u00a0 And a person who bases his solutions on events that didn\u2019t occur the way he insists they did, is begging for trouble.<\/p>\n

In the end, when I\u00a0consider Paul, a man who obviously believes what he says, and think about supporting him, I think of the above clip.\u00a0 I imagine hiring a person to drive a school bus.\u00a0 I consider the idea that one candidate is a child molester, another a convicted felon, and yet another\u00a0has a dismal driving record of citations and accidents.\u00a0 I then consider a fourth candidate, one who loves kids, has a clean driving record, and an impeccable character.\u00a0 I then imagine asking him how he has kept such a perfect driving record.\u00a0 Then I hear him saying, \u2018It\u2019s because I\u2019m careful, I drive defensively, and besides, all the elves that control the traffic lights are on my side.\u2019\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Would\u00a0I still hire him, knowing the safety of dozens of children were in his hands?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 Perhaps I would hire nobody.\u00a0 Or perhaps I would give the felon with a clean driving record who has paid his debt to society a new chance.\u00a0 But just because I could cleanse my own conscience by not hiring others with obvious character flaws would be no reason to set loose a bus load of children with a driver whose mental grasp of reality was seriously in question.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"