That's a great post.

However, I still think that RP brings something to the national debate that has been sorely missing for some time.

We have a nation out of touch with its history, in fact firmly confirmed in the belief that reading history is for losers (in pathetic opposition to the maxim that writing history is for winners).

Into the action/reaction fray of the presidential debate steps a candidate who knows a bit about history, and not just his own personal history or what some speech writer has brought to him.

Will he get the nomination? Will he win the office? No. Clearly not.

But are his ideas worth considering in the context of "how shall we be governed"? If ideas like the ones he espouses are not considered, then just how shall we be governed? My guess is, eventually, by the future equivalent of loudspeakers and cattle prods.

(That's not to say that this nation hasn't governed quite a few people in just that way before, or worse. That was some truly brutal "governing" at Wounded Knee. My fear is that the country learned a darker lesson from that incident (and others) than is generally spoken of: namely that you CAN treat other human beings as less than human, so long as you have government backing.)

I've no doubt that you're right when you say that voting for RP in the general election would be a "wasted vote." That is to say, if you want to have the satisfied feeling of voting for a candidate who might actually win, then voting for RP is probably not your road to that emotion.

On the other hand, a significant portion of the population voting for RP could change the direction of the alleged debate in this country . . . not as in a "sea change," but as in a slight shift of the national rudder. For me, that's as large as this hope can grow for now . . . that people will listen, take it upon themselves to learn more about the structure and purpose of our government's founding documents, and if they come to a considered position that those documents are historical artifacts rather than living, then at least they've lost little in the process & can go on voting for whatever chump from among the stump chumps gets its party nod.

If they find themselves at a considered position that those founding documents remain the living heart of our country's ideology, even with the provisions allowing for change, then perhaps people will begin to ask important questions--again leading to "how shall we be governed," or better yet, "how shall our government be allowed to conduct itself?"

Nobody on the national stage is asking questions of that nature except for Ron Paul. I maintain that a vote for him is better than the standard vote for "the lesser of two evils" that we get each & every 4 years. The RP voter may not get to be among the vote pool that elects the president from among the top-tier gasbags, but I maintain that there's not much worth to that anyway.

Herring405

PS: Turd sandwich! Giant Douchebag! Turd Sandwich! Giant Douchebag! (See South Park.)