There have been many folks following the political scene who have been astounded by the election of Barack Obama. How did this country go from someone like President Reagan and a quarter of a century later elect someone who wants government run health care, government owned insurance companies, car companies, banks, and etcetera? These same folks are amazed at the support someone like Ron Paul is getting. With the 2008 election, you saw the media treat him like a punching bag yet he continues to receive a tremendous amount of support by many. The straw poll win at CPAC has been turned into a wound the establishment and it’s media have been rushing to repair.
What we’re seeing is a generational difference and as it seems, the left is moving left. The right is moving right. [Note: When I say left, I mean big government and the opposite for the right. I'm not using the media's dry old two party definition.]
This may or may not be a natural growth by society as it renews and finds itself perpetually. Having been speaking and reading about politics pretty consistently, I’ve heard the notion that the youth is always radicalized in its energy for a political revolution. The explanation why no revolution ever actually takes place is that these young radicals have to grow up and get a job and this thing called “real life” takes over and their radicalism fades. I have always thought that this is a sad, sad thing. When people are energetic and active, they’re doing it to make life better for themselves and their country (even if misguided, the intentions are rarely evil). Why would you want that to stop? Why would you allow that to stop? How can you keep it from stopping? I think the answer is here.
The newest of generations have grown up to war, dirty politicians getting caught being dirty, terrorist attacks, more war, and trumping all of those: technology. The greatest generations coming up are both cynical and attached to information like it is a source of life. From sun up to sun down and everywhere in between, we have a generation of people who are attached to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, text messages, news aggregates, and others who are like-minded. Something tells me this won’t allow the death of their radicalism or political ideology.
The youth’s attachment to someone like candidate Obama isn’t incredibly surprising. The movies they’re watching are saying the same thing he’s saying. Michael Moore and Al Gore have been speaking to them and gathering their energy and their pliable sense of right and wrong. For eight years they’ve had the easiest “case in point” to aim their movies at. George W Bush was the greatest gift to the liberals that could ever be imagined. Our societies kids aren’t growing up thinking it is cool to say “nuke-u-lar” or wear a cowboy hat or be well… less than adequate speaker. War isn’t cool now, if it has ever been. Bush was sold as excess, awkwardness, and evil all in one package. It was an easy sell. But the side-effect is that part of a generation is now eyeballs deep into an ideology of definitions which are by any stretch of the imagination, distorted. Bush was not a conservative but conservatism took the hit for everything he did wrong. Bush was not a small government capitalist but capitalism and small government ideology unfairly take the damage. So now conservatism, small government, and capitalism are the evils. Where did you expect to see the youth run to? It isn’t hard to see that those selling the opposite would reap the benefits.
The youth’s attachment to someone like Ron Paul is somewhat surprising to me. Being a Ron Paul fan myself, I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as a testament to how well the message he speaks translate in the worst of times of speaking about small government, capitalism, and conservatism. Think about it. Republicans were branded conservatives for small government. They were supposed to be the party of capitalism and conservatism. Yet in the aftermath of the George W Bush free fall, Ron Paul’s message still sold. Everyone was being told that George W Bush was a capitalist and “capitalism failed”. Everyone was being told that George W Bush was the war mongering type of conservative that all Republicans were. Small government ideology was all but gone according to the media but somehow, the revolution began.
Imagine this… Imagine you work for a car company making a specific model of car. Imagine that every other model of car and truck that your car company made was falling apart, tires exploding, engines bursting, brakes failing, and altogether falling apart. Oh but not your car! Your car was great! But how could you possibly imagine that the sales of your car would increase when everything else that shares that brand name is rightfully under attack? It can happen. Ron Paul’s message of real and true conservatism was being sold while every other “conservative” was blowing a tire and sending the passenger into a ditch. People saw that he was different and those who really listened to the message understood what was different.
There is real hope for people who love the constitutionalist or libertarian ideology. It is this, now that the pendulum has swung hard back to the left (big government), it is the perfect time to start hitting their ideology and politicians just as George W Bush and Republicans were hit. If you think about the obvious failure of the big government, high taxes, and the impending failure of the dollar and federal debt, you have to understand that people will rightfully see the writing on the wall and swing the pendulum to the right. What we all need to understand is that we will either have someone like Mitt Romney, someone who mandated insurance coverage passed in his own state, standing with his arms wide open as the pendulum swings back. Or we can have any of the new breed of liberty minded politicians such as Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Adam Kokesh, Peter Schiff, Debra Medina, or one of many others, standing there with the truth flowing from their lips and the constitution in their hands, just waiting to show the people what politics should be like in America.
The truth is, the liberals are not the enemy of the liberty movement. They will fail as the fallacies of their policies will make a mess of what they are governing. If you believe in the constitution and limited government and it’s ability to work then you have to absolutely realize that the opposite cannot work. So the fight isn’t with those who will fail in the spotlight. It is with those who want to have control of the spotlight as it moves next.
The youth are the key. The youth are cynical of the establishment politicians and can they can tell when they are being lied to. They’ve got a YouTube video of a politician saying one thing then voting the opposite and they won’t let him or her get away with it. Then they’ve got a YouTube video of Ron Paul from the 80’s speaking against the Federal Reserve and preaching small government principles and voting that way his entire political career. They can see the truth when it gets in front of them. Our job is to get it in front of them. The liberals are entrenched in the media and are doing a wonderful job of teaching the youth their message. It is time that we get moving and do the same to counteract their ideology of serfdom and big government. We cannot let those who steal our name conservative teach them a broken definition of what we are or we will lose again and again.
We have to use technology and teach the truth. We cannot let the minds of the youth be stolen or we will lose so much more than elections.