The Price of Enlightenment.

There are three groups of voters in the United States. The first group is the "Apron Strings Voters". They are attached to whom the traditional media and party leaders have chosen as the winning candidates. They will settle for one of these candidates no matter that they offer us more deficit spending, more corruption by special interest groups, more party politics and more big government rather than have what they perceive as a "wasted vote." In other words, more politics as usual.

The second group is the Third Party Voters. They believe and rightly so, that the two party political system may be irreparably broken and corrupt. While this may be the year for a third party to finally have some degree of success, this group is prepared to settle for a less than stellar candidate in order not to have what they perceive as a "wasted vote."

The third group is the "Freedom Voters". They believe that in this election cycle any vote other than for Ron Paul is a wasted vote. They can not and will not vote for any candidate simply because there is an R or a D behind his name. Because of Ron Paul, they have finally realized how an elected official is supposed to vote and behave. We have been accepting less than honorable conduct and integrity from our elected officials for too many years. We have kept in office politicians that have betrayed us over and over again.

At the same time, Freedom Voters don't believe that we should never vote again unless another candidate with the intelligence and integrity of Ron Paul comes along. We may never see another Ron Paul in our lifetime. There will be other elections. There may be Ron Paul Republicans as nominees by then.

It may appear that we have become overly zealous in our support for Ron Paul. That is not true. We don't agree with every one of his ideas. But after being enlightened by this man's message of small government, less foreign entanglements, sane monetary policies, and not to mention his unbelievable political courage, we can never again settle for another weak candidate.