For Liberty is a documentary (Here’s the trailer) on the 2008 campaign produced and directed by Chris Rye and Corey Kealiher.  I have not seen it (to the best of my knowledge it has never been broadcast in Virginia) yet but I suspect based on the trailer and what I am reading about it it is very good.  Liberty Maven liked it very much! 

Without revealing too many details (I don’t want this to be a spoiler) it covers all of the major grassroots events, efforts, and activists that were the essence of the Ron Paul Revolution. It begins right around the time Ron Paul announced his candidacy and culminates with the Rally for the Republic.

Here’s a plug from the Campaign for Liberty along with the second trailer.  The For Liberty websitereports three nice endorsements:  Thomas Woods (“Knocked it out of the park!”), Doug Wead (“A stunning documentary worthy of Thomas Paine and troublemakers of an era past”), and the Southern Avenger, aka Jack Hunter (“Documents the only 2008 campaign based on actual ideas and real ‘change’”).   

Wisconsin is a great state for Ron Paul libertarians; its history has been condusive to new ideas and antiwar movements.  When people hear the Paul campaign and its promise, it wins people over.  I especially suggest it to tea party activists unsure about the Texas Congressman andf his message.  If you live in Wisconsin, invite your friends over for popcorn and give them hope!  Watch For Liberty on PBS Thursday night.  9 PM CDT.  Be there or be square!

This month, Fox confirmed that he was getting a weekly TV show, beginning on Saturday mornings and replaying in prime time on Saturdays and Sundays.

The first TV episode was billed as a “Tea Party summit,” with appearances by the Fox pundit Sarah Palin; Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas; and his son Rand Paul, a Republican and candidate in Kentucky for the United States Senate. (The elder Mr. Paul endorsed and wrote a forward for Mr. Napolitano’s most recent book.)

Also on the show were three Tea Party favorites, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and the former House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas, Republicans all, or “freedom fighters,” as the host called them. The lone Democratic guest was Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania.

“You know I love the tea parties,” Mr. Napolitano remarked at one point.

Judge Napolitano will be on Fox Business Channel twice every weekend with a new show.  The prominent Virginia libertarian Jacob Hornberger heartily approved the new show’s venue as a triumph of the free market:

“I think Fox is seeing a business opportunity here,” said Jacob G. Hornberger, the president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, a libertarian educational group.

Another leading libertarian, Lew Rockwell, also stressed the importance of libertarians in the media:

Lew Rockwell, the chairman of the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute and, like Mr. Hornberger, a regular guest on Mr. Napolitano’s webcasts, said he considered “Freedom Watch” to be “the most important libertarian broadcast in the history of the American media.”

“There has never been a show willing to address the difficult subjects involving liberty as this one does, let alone to do it so effectively and entertainingly. And Republican statism gets no free pass,” he said in an e-mail message.

Of course there are critics.  Bill Press lamented that right wing views are getting a “second propaganda channel.”  (That begs the question:  What are CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times, etc.)

If you get Fox Business Channel, watch the Judge!  Saturdays at 10 am and 8 pm and Sundays 7 pm and 11pm.  I think Comcast digital has FBC on channel 106 (I can’t get that channel!).  Let’s fill the waves with Tea Party and Libertarian ideas!

This is a tremendous victory for the libertarian movement.  It may be looking like the tea party movement is coming together with the Ron Paul libertarians.  First the Maine GOP Platform has elements of both the Paul faction and the tea partiers.  Now, Rand Paul is nominated for the US Senate. 

We are a long way from the 2007 laughter of Cong. Paul in his brave candidacy.  Is it any question who won the 2008 election?  Ron Paul did.  Congrats Rand Paul!

He has a clever Internet ad here on his webpage.  Redstate commented on it as well. 

Britton’s position on issues like Afghanistan are promising:

I love and support our troops, especially the 1,500 Vermont National Guard soldiers deployed to Afghanistan, and I’m against putting them in harm’s way without a clear mission and strategy. I am not convinced we have either in Afghanistan, but I am convinced that native Afghan forces will never step up to protect their own homeland until our departure requires them to. Nation-building and counterinsurgency have not worked in Afghanistan to date and cost too many American lives. Meanwhile al-Qaeda gathers strength elsewhere, from Pakistan to Yemen.

On health care, another promising position:

The current bills are products of business-as-usual Washington. They’re expensive, pork-filled, and they’ll make a bad deficit worse. Starting over with a free-market focus would be far more likely to deliver Americans the medical services they need more efficiently.  Meaningful tort reform would reduce both legal and insurance costs.

This is a promising development.  New England seems to be flirting with libertarian ideals in the GOP.  The Maine GOP platform is a Ron Paul/Tea Party document.  Now we have a libertarianish candidate running in Vermont.  Could be an interesting election.

Goldwater’s supporters began as early as 1961 to win precincts and win over conservative activists. The Tea Party is following a similar trail. But they work for a stricter conservative establishment, not a singular conservative challenging the moderate establishment. A Republican dark horse will likely only emerge if he or she can become that singular conservative.

It’s important to get involved in the local GOP.  In 2008, constitutionalist Delegate (state representative) Robert G. “Bob” Marshall was in a tight convention battle with former Virginia governor James S. “Jim” Gilmore, III.  There was a battle among the RonPaul supporters as to what to do – work within the party or opt-out.  I recommended that the Paul supporters get involved in the local party and run for delegates to the local and the state convention.  They did sign up to the local (Hanover County) convention where there was a tight local party chair race.  I brought a small county flag as the symbol to rally around the we sat together.  All who prefiled went to the state convention.  But the first ballot for local party leader (where we decided to support one of the candidates) ended in a stunning tie!  Thus there was a second ballot.  Many left the convention thinking it was decided and the liberty contingent became a crucial part of the election of the new local party chair (who is still there and is doing a fabulous job). 

But there’s more:  When the Hanover liberty contingent went to the state convention in Richmond, they were joined by others:  loud and vocal.  Although the Paul delegates were not siginifcant in influencing the national delegate selection or bring about major debate, they did make the Marshall/Gilmore race much closer than expected.  The final vote was about 52-48 percent.  This was a encouraging moral victory where virtually every establishment politician endorsed Gilmore. 

There’s still more:  In 2009, at least one pundit (Soren Dayton at the Next Right) credited the Republican Liberty Caucus and Ron Paul supporters in nominating Ken Cuccinelli for Virginia Attorney General.  Cuccinelli’s election is a powerful tale of what can happen when Paul supporters work within the system. 

Being a precinct captain is not glamorous work but it is how a political party stays true to its grass roots.  When I was elected precinct captain in Ohio, I was a member of the county central committee.  I also served once in Prince William County as a magistrial district chairman (a district that elects a member of the board of county supervisors) and I was again on the county committee but with a more important duty. 

At the Daily Paul is the report of a liberty supporter who was elected his precinct committeeman in Iowa and as a result he will CHAIR his local caucus in 2012.  One of those posting support said this:

Point of Order!
Great job Patriot!
In 2008 I ran for Precinct chair in Texas to support Ron Paul. I won 142 to 141. I am back on the ballot for the March 2 election.  I’ve spent the last 2 years spreading the message of Freedom, Supporting Dr. Paul and now Debra Medina.
Everyone who would be interested,think about running for precinct chair as a lot of the chairs are vancant (sic) and you can run unopposed.

I confess that right now I have so many other irons in the fire (curling, National Day of Prayer, Toastmasters, leadership at church) I am not especially active in my local party committee but I plan to get more active as time goes on.  I also have a boring election (Cantor is my congressman and he will not have a serious opponent) so I can be a bit inactive.  I ran into Donna Holt at my local tea party in Richmond that I was a bad libertarian but I blog for the cause.  She was very encouraging and said keep on blogging that is a real talent and a help.  Donna Holt is a hero of mine as she is our state Campaign for Liberty coordinator and worked hard to get Virginia to pass anti-REAL ID legislation and also some new laws this year.  I would guess that C4L needs many local leaders as well.  Contact C4L for more information.  Also consider joining your state Republican Liberty Caucus.  If on or near a college campus, check out the YAL, Young Americans for Liberty.  Find a local constitutionalist leader to support – a candidate for school board or county commission.  Or BE the candidate.

The Rally for the Republicans at the Kentucky Fair & Exposition Center isn’t your standard rubber-chicken campaign event. Frank Simon, a Louisville religious-right leader known for his strong opposition to gay marriage, leads the crowd of 800 in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Rev. Jerry Stephenson, a conservative black pastor, delivers the invocation, asking “Father God” to “help us start a revolution.” Then the Grammy-nominated rock and reggae singer Aimee Allen, decked out in tattoos, patterned stockings, and high-top sneakers, performs a three-song set, culminating in an anthem helped along by the candidate’s sons on acoustic guitars: “We don’t want no war no more / Bring our boys home to our shore.”

This improbable opening is topped off by the Rev. Jeff Fugate, the right-wing pastor of Clays Mill Road Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. Unlike the previous act, Fugate doesn’t sing about the PATRIOT Act or inciting a riot. Instead he gives a Falwellesque speech about restoring American values.

I believe this is inevitable.  Cong. Paul told courageous truths in 2007 and 2008; the GOP largely attempted to isolate his followers and their message.  But it failed due to the combination of the TARP and Obama’s legislative agenda.  The latest Rasmussen poll is startling:  President Obama 42% and Cong. Paul 41%.  (Thanks to the Lew Rockwell blog for this)

Rand Paul is doing so well that some libertarians are concerned he’ll compromise.  Some think he already has. 

Some libertarians fear the noninterventionist message is being lost entirely. David Adams cautions that “it is an oversimplification to call [Rand Paul] an anti-war candidate,” even though he would not have voted for the Iraq war. The younger Paul is still undecided about what our policy should be in Afghanistan. “Rand is terrified of the foreign policy his father has supported,” opines a libertarian activist who says he was rebuffed when he tried to arrange a meeting between Rand Paul staffers and J Street, an organization that bills itself as a more dovish Israel lobby.

But I believe the Rand Paul campaign may be promising!  So is the Rasmussen poll.  Independents chose Paul over the President by a wide margin but many voters do not know Paul:

Voters not affiliated with either major party give Paul a 47% to 28% edge over the president.  *  *  *  But nearly one-out-of-three voters (32%) are not sure what they think of Paul.

This is encouraging.  Cong. Paul can only go up.  If this report about oil prices is true, we may have an especially angry electorate.  No jobs, inflation, massive debt, and $4 or $5 per gallon gasoline.  I am thus encouraged.  We need a constitutionalist President.  To have that, we need constitutionalist elected officials.  Of course, we dare not trust in men but in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

His first was about Ron Paul:

Still, the presidential race is eons in the distance, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a wide-open contest at the start. That is good news for libertarian Ron Paul, who, startlingly, finished just one vote behind Romney. His organizers are the most intense of all.

This may well be great news.  If Paul and former NM Governor Gary Johnson can make the deal and run together as a libertarian ticket, they may have a force to reckon with. 

Fineman’s OTHER observation concerns my other political hero:  Bobby Jindal.

Other than former Oklahoma congressman J. C. Watts and RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who spoke to the gathering, I don’t think I saw a single African-American at the event. I’m not sure I saw a Latino or Asian person there, either—except for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, of course: “Southern, white, Republican, conservative” is a quadruple redundancy. They have as much right to hold a meeting as any other group. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that, as amped up and potent as this crowd felt inside the ballroom, there is another, larger world—and another generation—rising elsewhere.

See what I mean about tone?  I would think there were many African-American, Latino and Asian attendees at the SRLC.  If you were one, write to Fineman.  But Fineman makes a point that if someone like Romney were to be nominated, he may well seek out Jindal and persuade him to be his running mate for demographic reasons.   There are better reasons.  I think the nation might be in for a surprise.

Paul spoke against the new “diet police” threat.  I was pleased to see it.  The fast food companies are scared and they should be:  The treatment of big tobacco forced a legal settlement approved by Congress (where is that in the Constitution?) and now fast food may be in the sights of the same nannies who unfairly targeted big tobacco.  I agree that cigarettes are bad.  Tobacco is however, just like hamburgers, a LEGAL product. 

C-Span quoted Paul as saying this:  “The reason the American people have awoken is because the country is broke and the people in Washington won’t admit it.”  He also asserted that the Obama adnministration is not socialist but rather a corporatist ideology. 

I was particularly impressed with Rep. Thaddeus McCotter.  McCotter represents the 11th district of Michigan and I had never heard of him or heard him speak before.  He spoke softly but powerfully about the intellectual and ideological basis for conservatism.  His sense of duty has a Calvinistic ring to it.  Congressman McCotter is determined to do right no matter what.  Try to catch him on the third day of SRLC on C-Span.  He is the chair of the House Republican Policy Committee.  He travels every week to DC for sessions.

McCotter is at about 3:45.  He began with a sentiment I agree with:  Sharing in the prayers and mourning of the Polish people in the loss of their president and many leaders. 

Several McCotter highlights:

“I am just a simple country lawyer from Detroit.”

They sometimes ask in the grocery store:  “Are you him?  [pause]  That depends on if you like him or not.”

McCotter asks:  Can a nation based on self-evident truths survive “the cancerous growth of moral relativism”?  Could Calvin has said it better?  Nor would Francis Schaeffer.  His answer is no:

“Our truths are self-evident not relative.”

McCotter also said that, “Liberty is from God not the government.”  I told you he sounded like a Calvinist!

“Our prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector.”  AMEN!

McCotter said there were two fundamental differences between President Obama and the GOPers at the Blair House Health Care Summit.  Here’s his second (and most important):

“No administration…has the right to divide and defy the American people’s judgment on their own health care.”

Finally this brilliantly cadenced coda:

“They measure progress by the expansion of big government and bureaucracy and we measure progress by the expansion of self-government and liberty.” 

Wow. 

Calvin Coolidge said the business of America is business.  McCotter says much the same thing.  His ending is too long to quote here from the video.

If a speechwriter wrote this short address, he deserved a bonus if not a raise.  If Thaddeus McCotter wrote it, he is one of our most eloquent leaders today.  He uses cadence and language as a chessmaster would develop his pieces.  One my one he builds power until you are beaten.  I am keeping an eye on this representative for the future.

Wolfford has this criticism of Ron Paul:

Many conservatives reject Ron Paul’s celebrity, fringe positions, and irritation to the party over the years. He has advocated the legalization of drugs and blamed U.S. foreign policy for bringing about the 9/11 attacks. Some haven’t forgotten his 1988 run against Bush 41.

Conservatives should reject a person because he is a “celebrity”?  Oh if we had had a qualified celebrity in the last Presidential election!   Celebrity status did not bother the conservative supporters of Sarah Palin. 

And let’s discuss fringe positions:  Cong. Paul calls for balanced budgets, severe reductions in the federal government, and no wars without a declaration (and the consensus that such a declaration would require).  Is it gold and silver as legal tender?  I agree that is radical.  But the Constitution does indeed forbid the states from accepting any thing other than those two precious metals as currency.  I certainly cannot call for that today.  We need paper money.  Is it renouncing goody-goody wars against nations that did not attack us?  When I was a boy I was proud to say the USA never attacked another nation without a compelling reason.  Today that is not true anymore. 

The 9/11 is caused by our foreign policy canard is a misunderstanding of Dr. Paul’s position.  Paul is using 9/11 as a danger of an interventionist foreign policy.  He in fact voted for the authority to root out Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.  Today, as it evident by the way the US treats Karzai for daring to stand up to us, we are in fact nation-building.  This is not what the US should be doing. 

Legalization of drugs?  Many call for that to some extent.  William F. Buckley, Jr., famously went beyond the three mile limit in his yacht to legally smoke pot!  The 1988 campaign?  I have not heard anyone angry about the over 400,000 votes Paul got as if it cost Bush the election. 

Here’s the issues framed well:

Conservatives have a legitimate concern over Paul’s national-security credentials. He’s questioned Iran’s status as a potential nuclear threat and expressed worrisome views about how to handle captured terrorists. Some of his comments, whether off-the-cuff or not, have brought leading Washington national-security Republicans to his opponent’s side. Dick Cheney recently endorsed Grayson, calling him the “real conservative.” Paul has called for nixing the federal Energy and Education Departments to loud cheers; this is impressive to tea-party Jeffersonians, but won’t necessarily play well in a general election.

If it is conservative to play to the mob on procedural rights for terror suspects, count me out.  I do not want such rights as trial by jury decided by politicians!  Cheney cited the USA Patriot Act as a reason to support Grayson.  The excesses of the Patriot Act are manifest; we need to repeal that law before we do health care. 

Has NR conceded that we should have a department of education or energy on the federal level?  Not me.  NR may have strayed.  I’ll stick with Rand Paul.

Rand Paul has the passion on his side, but Kentucky Republicans who want to hold the Senate seat should give him a good, hard look before they vote in the primary on May 18.

I’ll still respect the NR of old.  But today’s not your father’s NR.  Thanks for the memories.