Former Neocons - What changed your minds?

I always identified as a liberal. I grew up in a poor immigrant household in NYC--definitely Democrat territory here. To me, Republicans were the rich white guys who didn't want to pay taxes to support the poor, or poor white religious zealots in the South who wanted to impose their narrow-minded views about gay rights, religion and abortion on the rest of the country.

I think the GWB years got me really outraged and interested in politics, world affairs, and the state of our country. The more I learned about the unjustified wars, 9/11, the Fed, the Patriot Act--the more I realized that the corrupt members of our government and big corps were the problem--no matter the party.

I learned that there were more dimensions to political views than left/right, and that while I lean more socially liberal, I definitely lean fiscally conservative. Somewhere along the way, I learned about Ron Paul in 2007, but I can't for the life of me remember when I first found out about him, or what the defining moment was. I have definitely been an avid fan since.

1. Reading Joel Skousen's "World Affairs Brief" since 1998 made us suspicious of neocon agenda.
2. Growing skepticism about the official 911 story around 2005
3. Watching Aaron Russo's America Freedom to Fascism in 2007
4. The very first Republican Debate in 2007 led me to read Ron Paul's Congressional writings to learn more about him. I read for many hours. So did my husband. What he said about the war suddenly made perfect sense to us. The following week, we joined a RP for President meetup. Shortly after, we stopped believing anything that Fox News said.

It's been difficult for us because our family worships Fox News, and they totally buy into the neocon agenda.

So do our (former) friends/church.

I think that a neocon will agree with a lot of what RP says, except Foreign Policy. What we usually say is: How is it that you think that the government is doing such a lousy job on everything BUT Foreign Policy? And we go from there. Either people get angry and blustery and offended, or they listen. Most don't listen, though. They're too afraid.

...changed my mind. God's Word is the only thing that could have changed my mind.

anything there. I looked into ron and saw some things I liked but then I saw some things like his stance on the wars and on drugs civil liberties and thought how can any republican think like this? This is for commie pinko hippy druggy pacifists! So intrigued and a bit annoyed I looked into his reasons for his position. I found myself saying "huh, that makes sense" a lot. The explanations I found fascinating. Every thing I learned would make me think of more questions and counter points. As I went along I found that they were all answered and all my reservations were dismissed. Ron Paul is right! I don't know how he did but I agree with everything he says. Then every time he said something new I hadn't heard before or voted in a controversial manner, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he had a very good explanation and reason for it. Sure enough he did every time and I became an even bigger supporter after each one. Ive watched every video of him and related issues and supporters for the last 4 years and grow more impressed with him and his honest answers every time.

The take away from my experience I guess, is that for some people the more controversial positions which Ron Paul holds and which alienate certain voters right now, may become the very positions that win them over after some research is done.

So getting people to read, watch, listen and research for themselves is the key.

I fell in love with this man from the Soviet Union. He has open my eyes wide enough to see that we are stupid stupid stupid about how much we trust our "Government" he said you don't think your government wouldn't do the same to you as mine did us? He told me that we so freely give up our freedoms here it is staggering. I got schooled big time. .

America: Freedom to Facism
Movie by Aaron Russo

A few days later...
WTC-7 Video.

I didn't stop Googling or sleep for two days.

I thought Ron Paul was retired because he told the truth so aggressively. I just assumed he was beyond any risk of not getting re-elected.

Ron Paul of course!

Then it was Scott Horton, Lew Rockwell, Gary North, Bob Murphy, Walter Block, Tom Woods, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig Von Mises, Heyek, Hopp,

In truth it was turning off the TV and plugging into alternative media.

I was a teenage neocon, and then I was a young adult neocon.... and then I changed, but the change didn't come over night. It was gradual. As I got older, I experienced new things...(pot, war, economic downturn, etc). By the time I was 26, I realized that I liked pot, hated war, and was quite worried about our nation's economic decline.... and then I started to hear about this "Ron Paul" guy. I was still very skeptical of any politician actually being anything more than a rat, but the more I learned about Dr. Paul, the more I began to understand, he wasn't a politician, he was a statesman. The big change came for me in the summer of 2007 when I saw Dr. Paul on The Colbert Report. From that point on, I was sold on Dr. Paul. (Thanks Colbert!).

[Short version: After 17 years or so (since I was a teen) of strongly supporting all our wars I did not initially believe what Ron Paul was saying about the wars being illegal / unconstitutional / undeclared. Instead of taking the MSMs word for it that RP was a 'kook' (what they were calling him back in early 2008), I did my own research and bought a copy of the Constitution. After some studying up on the Constitution I realized that Dr. Paul was right about everything, which meant I was wrong for supporting all the unconstitutional policies when I did. A tough pill to swallow, but I can admit & accept when I am wrong. That was the turning point for me and the start of my waking up process.]

Although I always considered myself a Republican, I was probably a neocon without realizing it since I was a teen when the Gulf "War" started in 1990 up until I learned about Ron Paul in January 2008.

During that time, 1990-2007, I always felt we were 100% in the right to be doing what we were around the world. When Iraqi SAM sites would fire at one of our planes I felt that bombing the SAM site was not enough. IMO, back the, it was treaty over now we take Baghdad.

So, in the fall of 2007 two friends told me that I would probably like Ron Paul. One friend also became a Ron Paul supporter and the other is pretty much a die hard democrat Obama supporter. Back then they said Ron Paul was really popular online.

In December 2007 I flew to Tampa to spend the holidays there with family. Driving out of the airport I was greeted with miles and miles of Ron Paul signs (thanks to whoever did that), which reminded me of what my friends said. That was enough to get me to research Ron Paul when I returned from my trip. Note, the huge display of support with maybe 5+ miles of signs along the road made a big impact, but did not yet convert me.

So, got home from my trip and spent some time on YouTube as well as reading other sites including the DailyPaul. That was in January 2008.

On some videos Ron Paul mentioned that we were involved in illegal / unconstitutional / undeclared wars. Impossible, so I thought. I was not willing to take the media pundits word for it that Ron Paul was a "kook" (that's what he was being called back then) and decided to do my own research.

Despite being academically inclined, I never really studied the Constitution but since Ron Paul was making statements based on it I decided to buy a copy.

Sure enough I learned what most everyone here should know, I learned, to my complete shock, that ONLY Congress has the authority to declare war on behalf of the United States. Additional research confirmed Ron Paul was also correct in that we have not declared war since the 1940s.

How could we be involved in so many wars (many which I strongly supported until I woke up) without the Constitutionally mandated declaration of war by Congress?

That was the turning point for me. The realization that I WAS WRONG for supporting policies of the United States which were in violation of the highest / supreme law of our land.

That marked the beginning of my 'waking up' experience, which was quite shocking to say the least.

How could the United States of America, the country and flag that I always felt the fastest to support & be patriotic about, do this to me? To us. I felt lied to. I felt ASHAMED for supporting all those neocon policies without knowing exactly how they violated our highest law. How can our political representatives sleep at night knowing that they are ignoring their oaths AND violating them?

After a few weeks of study & fact checking nearly all of his claims I was convinced that Ron Paul was 100% true to our Constitution and that he was probably one of the only, if not the single, national level politician who both believed in our Constitution AND obeyed his oath to it.

There truly is no turning back from liberty once you wake up.

4 years later and I am more pro Ron Paul than ever. In the past few years I've probably introduced/influenced a few thousand people in regards to Ron Paul and/or principles of liberty, both online and offline.

I was always pretty liberty minded, but I had some neo-con leanings from growing up in the 90's. I was a Bush supporter in 2000. After 9/11, when the administrations first response was the 600 page patriot act, days after, my whole world shifted towards something different. By 2003, I hated neo-cons worse than democrats. I figured at least democrats are honest about their love for big government.

The liberty message and Ron Paul helped me back into my inborn leanings of liberty. Austrian economics and the Mises institute have firmly planted me back to my anti-state roots. Thanks to Dr. Paul, I shouldn't be tricked again.

essay on Liberty

It started out as a desire to find support for free markets and capitalism. This led me to finding out about the Fed, and reading various libertarian writers. After I realized that a lot of the stuff I had assumed had to be done by the government was BS, I slowly but surely came around to the same realizations about foreign and social policy. Eventually, I realized Ron Paul had been right all along.

raised my first eyebrow. I was a night clerk at a hotel and we had to leave the lobby tv on CNN. We were just starting the Iraq war, and it was still uncertain about whether they had WMDs, but CNN was pushing pretty hard about invading Iraq, THEN a one line sentence scrolled across the bottom with stating that North Korea was openly admitting to having WMDs. It made me wonder why we weren't going after them when we knew they had WMDs. I went totally to Ron Paul after a 2008 debate when he went thru the history of us overthrowing the Shah, supplying Saddam with weapons and money, and Bin Laden with stingers during the Russian war. This both flabbergasted and appalled me.

I was already coming to the realization on my own before really knowing what Ron Paul was about.

I had known about the Fed and its history for a long time. I had rationally come to the realization that no matter what the party affiliation, the results of our supposed representation still amounted to the same ole same ole thing. I was challenging Dems and Repubs on social boards I was involved in trying to expose the hypocrisy in both sides' arguments.

I guess I chose to go too deep into the rabbit hole of the history of how we got to where we are to notice Ron Paul. That might sound impossible but it was the truth.

I had always enjoyed hearing what Jim Rogers had to say and Peter Schiff but never got past either of them to find the link to Ron Paul.

To finally answer the question I would have to say it was the national debt, government spending and the hopelessness of ever repaying those bills that woke me up. I guess I thought things had gone too far (understatement). The bail outs, the role of the Fed, the perfect alignment of each party in support of the madness told me this has got to stop.

I was already familiar with CIA ops to overthrow governments and I began to apply some critical thinking AFTER I turned off Fox and mainstream media. What I never did was connect the dots. I began to question myself first and then media accounts of events to hopefully come to an objective conclusion and I found myself disbelieving more and more of the conventional interpretation of events.

There's so much more that had an influence on my change in thinking but thankfully, the Presidential race began and I HEARD Ron Paul for the first time and that was pretty much checkmate for me.

I found myself seeking out Ron Paul and challenging myself to try and find reasons NOT to support him as not to fall victim to the politicians I wanted to avoid. To my great relief, I found a man I could put my trust in to represent me and what I wanted and I have been an advocate ever since.

I must say though, it was the supporters of Ron Paul that spurred me to actively engage rather than just sit idle and watch events unfold and hope Ron Paul wins. Finding The Daily Paul was instrumental in my transformation and I am forever thankful!

I had this realization about 1 1/2 years ago that since we are headed for an economic meltdown, we can either be proactive and draw the military forces back in a deliberate fashion, or just ignore all that and keep going 1,000 mph into a brick wall. Once I fully saw that my chickhawk just flew right out the window.

Actually South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said something very similar a while back, saying that we ignore Ron Paul's economic message at our peril. If we don't address the issue then we'll have to cut way back anyway.

So we can either just go on ahead and take the bull by the horns, or be forced to later in ways that are less advantageous. I don't see one other candidate that is advocating the proactive stance, just a bunch of ignorant reactionaries.

The first thing that started my marathon conversion was watching From Freedom to Fascism at the end of 2006. That's where I first learned about Ron Paul, and that's where I realized how corrupt and tryannical our tax, banking, and monetary system is.

After that, I would say just following Ron Paul, learning about his philosophy, and comparing it with neocons' shed some light on their fiscal hypocrisy. Also, Ron Paul's foreign policy of the Golden Rule and asking myself how we'd react if somebody were to treat us like we treat other countries was a big eye opener to understanding the motivations of terrorists. Before Ron Paul, I bought into the MSM dogma that they hated us because we're rich and we're free. At the time, I sort of bought into that mostly because I hadn't heard any other ideas, but I partly didn't either because of its inherent absurdity.

Kinda crazy but I didn't hear about Ron Paul until I stumbledupon a few websites and videos about him (literally like 5 in a row). After each article and video my mind was blown to which I then read the entire Constitution. I have been devouring books like its my job ever since.

However, looking back I think I have always felt the basic principles of liberty and the rights of the individual but I was never able to fully grasp it. It's a weird feeling when it happens.

The truth is, once you know liberty you never go back!