Message From An Older Republican

I don't know, does my being 61 years old qualify me as "older"?
My sister is 64. My kid brother is a mere toddler at 57. It certainly plops us in the middle of a demographic that has been a hard sell for Ron Paul, the "Baby Boomers".

And if I don't qualify, how about my mother and father-in-law, both in their eighties?
Or how about my 93 year old neighbor Doris, who let me put up a 3'x4' “Ron Paul 2012” sign in here yard.

We are all Ron Paul supporters.

My mother has been a lifelong Republican, Christian evangelical, born and raised in the middle of the Bible Belt.

The folks down at the Ron Paul headquarters in Ankeny, Iowa probably remember her. She was the white-haired lady that was banging at their door one Saturday morning and wondering why no one answered. (The hours that were posted on the door were left over from the previous tenet but she didn't know that.) She came back later and scolded them for not being open on time. "It looks bad for Ron Paul. Unprofessional. People might think he's dropped out."

Mom gets angry at the mainstream media just like the rest of us. She sputters and fumes about how “They” are scared to death of Ron Paul. And she gets frustrated with her peers who can't seem to see past the propaganda.

So the question is, if Ron Paul is a candidate who only appeals to young people, why are WE the exception?

I actually had a reporter ask me that question. I laughed and said that maybe it was because I was “young at heart”. I was joking then, but now that I have had more time to think about it, I'm not so sure.

Maybe if being “young at heart” has something to do with having an open mind, I wasn't that far off. Humility is a virtue. Humility doesn't mean that you have low self esteem, that you are unsure of yourself, or are unsure of the things that you know; it simply means that you still believe that someone else might have something to teach you. But in practical terms, maybe it just means that I have never been been comfortable with any of the politically correct models of the world. I have never been satisfied with the glib explanations offered by the liberal/conservative paradigm.

I could never fully buy in to the status quo because I just had too much intellectual integrity. Like Galileo, I could not dismiss the evidence of my own eyes, no matter how much it would have simplified my life.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a common trait among Ron Paul supporters. I say unfortunately because it also seems to be a fairly UNcommon trait in the general population.

In 2007 I thought that we MIGHT be on the verge of a tidal wave, or maybe I should say, an avalanche. If there were enough people out there like myself and my family, all it would take is getting the word out about Ron Paul, and the face of American politics would be changed forever.

It did not take me long to become disillusioned.
Let’s face it. The avalanche never happened, and the low hanging fruit has long since been gathered.

Most of my peers (the older Republicans) are good people. They believe in self-reliance and personal responsibility. They aren’t looking for a handout. They are willing to work for their prosperity.

But converting them to Ron Paul will involve a lot more than waving a sign or shouting “End the Fed” at a passing car.

Let me explain.

My generation has been lied to since we first toddled off to Kindergarten. We have had propaganda pounded into our skulls for decades, and it hasn't gotten any better as we have gotten older. Every time we caught a glimpse through the matrix; IF we were ever brave enough or stupid enough to mention it, we got a cold slap in the face.

The early Boomers got to ride a demographic wave of prosperity for decades. Assuming that we kept our mouths shut, bought into the system, didn't mention the emperor’s nakedness; we were rewarded by good paying jobs. We could be managers, supervisors, and executives over the late boomers, and everyone could benefit from the incredible wealth brought on by cheap energy and exploding technology.

We were told that we were extraordinarily blessed (true) and that our prosperity had come at the expense of the majority of humanity who lived in poverty (false). Capitalism, we were told, was synonymous with greed.
Before we could be forgiven for our prosperity we must acknowledge our guilt and the debts we owed to so many others.

We owed reparations to the great grandchildren of slaves. It was OUR fault that they lived in ghettos. We OWED them the Civil Rights Act and the “War on Poverty” and “affirmative action”.

We OWED the people of Viet Nam the lives and limbs of America's young soldiers (mostly OUR lives and limbs), even if it meant forcing them into slave armies.

We OWED our elders Social Security and then Medicare. We OWED the Israelites a country of their own. We OWED the starving third world nations aid by the billions.

To pay our debts we wrote blank checks to the federal government. When that wasn't enough we let the Federal Reserve write the blank checks for us.
We were told that the national debt really didn't mean anything anyway.

We were told that the U.S. Constitution was only there to protect criminals or homosexuals or communists or atheists or women who wanted abortions.

Anyone who opposed any of this was a bigot, a Nazi, unpatriotic, or at the very least incredibly selfish and ungrateful.

And when all that we could give still wasn't enough to eliminate poverty and disease and racism from the world, we were told it was because WE had sin in our hearts.

Oh, They didn't use the word “sin”, but that was the message.
For what is “unconscious” racism or sexism or ageism if not the modern equivalent of original sin?

And now we are told that to be a good person we must also cleanse ourselves of the unrighteousness of “nationalism”, become a citizen of the world, give up our greenhouse gas-producing cars and light bulbs, give up our jobs to people in India or China or Korea or Mexico or work for less pay, fewer benefits, and longer hours.

And then 9/11 came along and gave us something else to worry about, but it also gave the demagogues an opportunity to redirect our growing anger and frustration.
They pushed all of our primal buttons.
Now any one who opposed their agenda was not just unpatriotic, but also a fool and a coward.

But the wars dragged on, the market crashed and with it our life savings and any dream of retiring.

But our joints are starting to ache and we can't remember phone numbers and names don't come to mind as quickly as they used to. And to top it all off, our company is looking to downsize or offshore or re-organize or merge.

We are older “Republicans” because we know that the only alternative stinks to high Heaven.
We are mad as hell and we don't have a clue what to do about it.
We have too many people giving us too many alternative explanations and too many “solutions”, and none of them ring very true.
But the last thing we need is for somebody to come along and tell us AGAIN how it is all OUR fault and how OBVIOUS it should have been that the people we voted for were actually evil or greedy or stupid or (worse) that WE have been evil or greedy or stupid.

See, if you want to vent your frustrations at us, go ahead,... and lose.

But if you want to “Restore America Now”, you’re going to have to practice a little empathy.
WE aren’t the enemy.
WE are the victims of the enemy.

The conspiracy has always thrived on turning us against one another; white against black, women against men, Democrat against Republican, young against old.

The conspiracy took over the media and academia before we were even out of diapers. And unless you are part of our generation, you will never know what it feels like to unlearn five decades of brainwashing. You will never know the pain of realizing that you have wasted your life destroying your own country.

So be gentle. Be kind. Be friendly.
We are on your side, we just don’t know it yet.
We don’t need to understand the Federal Reserve as much as we need to know that you CARE.

And if we can feel THAT, we will give you the time to explain all the rest.
We really DO need each other.
“We the People” always have.