Isilion

I’ve felt an "I give up" post coming on for some time, and this isn’t really it, but I am totally at a loss as to where I should be going and what I should be doing. I’ve given time, money and sweat over the past year doing everything I know to help the national campaign and the local one only to see it more or less come to nothing as far as real change.

When Ron Paul’s nomination effort began to unravel I put my hopes on working locally to get Ron Paul Republicans on the ballot for congress. I think we did as well as could be expected in Maryland, but the fact of the matter is Peter James, Collins Bailey, et al, are going to get their asses handed to them in November. One only has to look at the number of votes their Democratic rivals got in the Maryland Primary to recognize that.

Before I got involved in Ron Paul’s campaign I had come to accept that voting in national elections was a complete waste. The choice boils down to the color of your chains. The thing is Ron Paul has very much succeeded in educating me. He took my vague, unfocused, intuitive disgust with the state and gave me the analytical tools and reasoned principles to see exactly how imperial delusions, monetary flimflammery, collectivist pandering and media enabling work to prevent any real, substantive debate or political action that might threaten the status quo.

So now I see things much more clearly than ever, including my impotence. I am very angry and very frightened.

I also have no idea what I can do about any of it. I see Ron Paulers and other liberty seekers working on various projects, trying to pull together a core of interconnected activists, and I respect their efforts, but other than contributing money I don’t know what I can do. I don’t have any marketing skills, video talents or leadership ability to contribute. I’m just an aging geek with moderate IT skills and unless someone needs a help desk guy I’m not going to be a mover and shaker no matter how many pep-talks I give myself. They fact of the matter is I’ve already given more than I can afford and the cynic in me fears all our efforts are simply going to become a way of fleecing a new type of sheep: liberty junkies who work their asses off in dead end jobs throwing away their not very disposable income looking for another fix of freedom.

However, I can’t unlearn what I know, the liberty bell cannot be unrung. There is something burning inside of me. I have to do something or I’m just going to become a bitter old man who shakes his fist at everything and accomplishes nothing.

I’d like to see the way forward, but I can’t. Where do I go from here?

Even though I took some introductory courses in economics in college, it was always boring to me, also, other than the very basic stuff like supply & demand and the law of diminishing returns, I didn’t really understand it. I was originally drawn to Ron Paul’s campaign because of his opposition to the war and his unwavering defense of civil liberties. His economic stuff was just more blah, blah, blah, until he started getting through to me with the idea that economics and monetary policy are fundamental to understanding both domestic and foreign policy and the political structures and processes at play in this country and around the world. Talking about those things without talking about economics is like trying to talk about music while ignoring the concept of rhythm; like trying to understand Magick without knowledge of Qabalah.

I’ve actually been aware of him for several years, and it has been an amazing education for me. Regardless of the outcome of this election–and between you, me and the Internet, I am less confident about that than I was six months ago–there are now thousands, if not millions, of people like me who are waking up to the principle of spontaneous order and the emergent properties of a free society. He has let the genie out of the bottle and it is not going back in.