Why you should vote for Ron Paul

If you want to live in a free country, you're going to have to give up the idea that every scraped knee in the United States needs a federal program to come in with a Band-Aid.

"But scraped knees are terrible. They could get infected. And you can't leave this important issue up to the states because it's not fair for children in one part of the country to get Band-Aids while in other parts of the country children sit on the sidewalk and bleed. And you can't count on parents because they're both working and the kids are home alone because there aren't enough after-school programs...."

If that's what you think, you want to live in a country that compels people to work for the benefit of people they don't know and can't control. You want to give a big chunk of your money to the government -- actually, they won't wait for you to give it to them, they'll just take it -- whenever the government decides that somebody else needs it.

But if you want to live in a free country, vote for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a Republican candidate for president, a ten-term U.S. Congressman from Texas, and a man whose libertarian philosophy favors freedom, limited government, and adherence to the Constitution.

Here's a link to a Houston Chronicle article that sums up Rep. Paul's views: "Ron Paul's campaign buzz resonates on Internet."

You will not have to look far to find some well-respected political analyst to tell you that Ron Paul can't win.

But if you support him, you should vote for him anyway.

If you agree with Ron Paul's views and you vote for somebody else, no one will know you exist. But if everyone who agrees with Ron Paul's views votes for him, everyone in politics will take note of how many voters there are out there who will support a politician who stands for freedom, limited government, and adherence to the Constitution.

Nothing gets everybody's attention in politics like a big chunk of votes.

Opinion polls are taken seriously to an extent, but polls are just guesses based on telephone calls to people who are eating dinner. Votes are actual voters who knew the date of the election and the location of their polling place.

So if you support Ron Paul's views, you should vote for him. Your vote will make a difference. Maybe not in this election. But very likely in the next one.

Copyright 2007

Editor's note: You may be interested in these essays by Susan Shelley:

"The Tyranny of the Children"

"The Motive for War: How to End the Violence in Iraq"

"How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing" [Read the full version, with complete source notes, at the web site for The 37th Amendment: A Novel.]

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