On A Really New Political Phenomenon

by Il Fettucinni

Bellingham, WA January 30, 2012

I have watched many presidential campaigns since I was born.  The first one was Ike vs Adlai in 1952. I was seven and I remember Stevenson’s hole-in-shoe picture and the “I Like Ike” buttons, and that my mother was for Adlai Stevenson, and my father, Ike. Perhaps it was this internal and constant examination of issues from two opposite sides that contributed to making me think as I do today. My father and mother drove to the polls every four years and always voted for opposite candidates. They never came to an agreement.

Now 60 years later I have spent most of my adult life studying this kind of confrontation. I am most strong for Ron Paul which is no surprise. I’ve been a libertarian and held the same individualistic, strong individual rights, pro free-market, laissez-faire position since 1969 when most of my political thoughts coalesced at the University of Hawaii. I have been greatly saddened by the last string of political rulers who totally abandoned any hope of having a “limited government” or non-interventionist foreign policy as George Washington urged 223 years ago.

Clinton was a liar, fool, and collectivist. Both Bushes were Neo-cons who drained the US dry and entered wars that were none of our business, killing young men and squandering our treasure with disdain. The current ruler, Obama, is systematically bankrupting us and relieving us of each of the Bill of Rights one by one. I believe that one of the reasons for this has been a wholesale abandonment of what we might call “classic liberal ideas” by the Neo-con Right and an irrational insanity by the collectivist Left. The individual voter is left with “The LESSER of Two Evils,” as each voting cycle of voting for the “Lesser of Two Evils” gradually gave us more and more evil men running the government.

And this is the norm! Politics is an evil, vile void, encrusted with the strange notion of “the good of the people” which never can be agreed upon and thus he who can be handsome, convincing, seemingly the “best,” or “the lesser of two evils” obtains power and many of the people love it. For evidence remember the real tears of Jesse Jackson when Obama won? Or the fanatic happiness and joy of the people of Germany when Hitler won? The looks in the peoples’ eyes on both occasions were the same.

But now in the midst of this filth and putrescence comes Ron Paul, who has preached individual rights, not getting into foreign wars, leaving people alone to live their lives as they want to, and cutting way, way back on what government does, replacing the fiat dollar with a reliable gold-based one, and stopping the inevitable US as World Cop Syndrome.

In the 80s, preaching the same message as today, he was laughed at and ignored. The major media, owned by corporations which depend on current government protection from competition, has continued to ignore him and put him down at all possible moments.

With exceptions.

Now that he has won high places in the first three Republican state races, the media has been forced ever so grudgingly to give him more time. As he was given more time more people heard his message and compared it to his rivals,

Neo-cons all. And from what I see, more and more people have finally opened their eyes and admitted, “This Guy is right! He’s the only one who honestly is looking straight at the facts!” We are broke due to excessive spending for the last 50 years. The last president broke the bank and the current one is has impaled us on massive trillions of NEW debt, enough to affect my grand kids! This old man, the kindly old doctor, this man with the raspy, up and down musical voice is the Man of the Century!

What evidence do I offer you? Well I could offer long, boring math stuff but I want to tell you about my recent adventures compared to 1988 when I also campaigned for Ron Paul, then running as a Libertarian. I recently took a trip to Phoenix to see an old pal and after that went on to Dallas to be at the American Library Association’s winter Convention. I wore a small Ron Paul button on my shirt and the effect it had on common people was astounding! The TSA Groper at the Bellingham, Washington Airport looked at it and smiled. As I walked down the aisle of the MD 82 to Phoenix many of the people saw the button and smiled and several gave the thumbs up. A couple asked me if I were Ron Paul. But most engaged me in conversation and were enthusiastic about him. Twenty-four years ago when Ron ran as a libertarian the major media also ignored him and most people had no real idea who he was.

Now plagued with the economy at the bottom, with inflation gradually eating us alive, with a known government deficit in the trillions, people are starting to see Ron Paul as someone very serious and honest. The clerk at the Villa Mirage in Phoenix gave me the thumbs up. I thought it was because she liked my looks but it was the Ron Paul button. Later the entrepreneur who ran the grill saw my pin and just about gave me a free breakfast with all the extras he poured on. He was not only a well read Paul backer but a shooter and only 24 years old! What thrills me most is that Ron Paul has a sign on his desk in Washington DC that reads, “Don’t STEAL. The government does not like competition.” Ron Paul is an intellectual. He knows his economics, he understands and champions Von Mises, Rand, and Friedman. He is honest as the day is long. He quotes Murray Rothbard and knew him. And best of all, this 24-year-old Phoenix businessman knew this too. On and on it went, for each person who saw my button in 1988 and each person in 2012, the 2012 viewers were about 20-1 positive on Ron Paul.

And on it went. On the plane home an elder lady in her sixties, who lived in Seattle, began an animated and lovely conversation about how she too loved Ron Paul, and wanted to know how to help make him president. I told her to join in with local Seattle friends and talk to people on the phone, wave signs by major roads, give money to the campaign, wear that Ron Paul sign wherever she went, and be a delegate at the county level for Ron Paul.

But best yet, after seeing one celebrity after another come over to Ron Paul, I learned that a man I know who fought WWII and voted Democrat all his life and admired Roosevelt, told his daughter, “You know we’ve been watching those Republican debates and the only honest one is Ron Paul!”

Which leads me to the last and most important realization I’ve had in years. For the first time in six decades of growing collectivism, we have a man who is good in and of himself. He is not the “Lesser of Two Evils.” He is good for hard-working, honest people. He is the tyrants’ foe. He is an actual, real answer to inflation, death to taxes, to foreign wars, to politicians who more and more are transparent lusters after power. He is the GOOD in himself.

If he wins would he turn on us and betray thirty years of an unblemished record of voting against the growth of the State? Possibly. But then all men are merely men and could turn. But this one is seriously graced with character, with true merit.

I’m 66 and have been appalled at the crude evil of American politicians for the last four decades. But Ron Paul, this simple Texas doctor, when he walked into a packed hall in Iowa to speak recently was greeted by an astonishingly huge roar of approval. Virtually every man woman and child stood up and began to wildly applaud him before he spoke!

When I witnessed those people in Iowa all standing and madly cheering for Ron Paul before he spoke, it made me cry… cry for the good that this heroic man has done and is continuing to do, when he could retire and live happily in Texas with his family.

Good character goes a long way. Please join me in making him president!

[Ed. note: Il Fettucinni is former TV and News broadcaster Fred James of Bellingham, Washington. Fred was a talk radio host for more than 25 years in Honolulu and Alaska presenting a Randian/Libertarian prospective. He was the television anchor for Valley News in Wasilla, Alaska from 1993 to 1996, covering politics, philosophy, economics ,and opera for the most part.]