It's Time for Civil Disobedience

http://www.nolanchart.com...

Last modified: Thursday, March 6, 2008

It's Time for Civil Disobedience
by Jake Morphonios

"I couldn't stop this movement if I tried." - Ron Paul in an LA Times interview.

Ron Paul will not be President of the United States. He has confirmed repeatedly that he will not run as a third-party or independent candidate. He has already admitted that he cannot win the Republican nomination. "Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero."

Paul supporters that keep hoping that he can snatch up all the delegates of Romney, Huckabee, Guiliani and other GOP candidates are fooling themselves and wasting valuable time. There is absolutely NO WAY that Paul can win the Republican nomination.

The Republican party has not reflected a belief in constitutional principles for decades. The party is dead and cannot be resurrected. I spit on its grave. I say, let this monstrocity die its rightful death.

Ron Paul is not the revolution. We are.

How do we want to procede? Consider Ron Paul's support base: disenchanted Republicans, anti-war Democrats, Libertarians and Independents... does anyone really believe that these parties want to form ranks behind Ron Paul to save the Republican party? NO.

The answer is not to shut our mouths and be loyal to a corrupt party, hoping against hope that one day it will return to sanity and a constitutionally-sound party platform. Even if Paul is successful in sending enough delegates to the nominating convention to have some influence on how the party planks should be written, does anyone expect the neo-cons to abide by the platform? If they won't follow the US Constitution then they won't follow a Constitutional party platform. Duh!

We have accomplished too much in the past year to go away quietly. We have been snubbed by ignorant voters who don't even know the difference between a republic and a democracy or between capitalism and socialism. We have been insulted and silenced by the mainstream media, under the control of corporate dictators like Rupert Murdoch. We have been called kooks, nuts, and Paul-tards.

Now the movement is fracturing because there is no clear objective.

I propose a new course:

DEMAND REFORM THROUGH CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Ron Paul has said many times that he believes in civil disobedience. Read comments he made on the floor of the House of Representatives on May 22, 2007:

"Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment."

"Peaceful non-violent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved great political successes by practicing non-violence, yet they themselves suffered physically at the hands of the state."

"But whether the resistance against government tyrants is non-violent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism."

"True patriotism today has gotten a bad name at least from the government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor, are routinely condemned. These American patriots are sadly looked down upon by many. They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have been."

"Liberals, who withhold their taxes as a protest against war, are vilified as well especially by conservative statists."

"Unquestioned loyalty to the state is especially demanded in times of war. Lack of support for a war policy is said to be unpatriotic. Arguments against a particular policy that endorses a war once it's started, are always said to be endangering the troops in the field. This, they blatantly claim, is unpatriotic and all dissent must stop. Yet it is dissent from government policies that defines the true patriot and champion of liberty..."

I believe that if we are to keep our revolution alive, we must strike hard against tyranny. We must organize a grand march on Washington DC. We must commit acts of non-violent civil disobedience to wake this country up.

All successful civil rights campaigns, from women's suffrage to equality for blacks, involved a march on Washington DC and the extensive use of sit-ins, protests, demonstrations, and other forms of non-violent civil disobedience.

I think we should begin a substantive discussion of what actions we can take individually and as a whole to demonstrate our absolute refusual to continue to tolerate government tyranny against us and our families.

To those of you who feel no anger, I invite you to go back to suckling the beast that feeds you. Fair-weather supporters who are too afraid to stand up for their rights against a vicious government are welcome to stay out of the way of those of us wishing to emulate the founding patriots of our nation who spent more than trite words for the just cause of liberty.

I leave you with Dr. Paul's words from this past January:

"The whole world is watching how we do today.. on a day dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, the great champion of non-violence at home, peace abroad, and civil disobedience against tyrannical government."

2008 Jake Morphonios