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Friday, August 24, 2007

The Ron Paul REvolution – The Road to Freedom


Watch this Video on The Granny Warriors and Ron Paul!

At the beginning of the 1770s waves of distrust and tension had already caused America's colonials to view the Royal Governors and England's Monarchy with caution and hostility. Colonial Americans had removed to the New World for a variety of reasons but a love of government was not among those.


For many, including the Puritans and Quakers, two of the major groups who made up the population prior to the Revolution, the intention was to try new forms of organization based on very different ideas about their relationship with God. Through town governments that depended on a small group of people using persuasion the ideas of individual freedom had been in use for generations by then. General Gage, the commander of the British forces based in Boston in the period before the Concord Alarm and the Shot Heard Round the World was advised to force the replacement of town governments with oligarchic British borough governments. Gage correctly saw that would not work.


Those ideas explored the idea that God endowed each individual with an immediate and personal relationship with Him. Remote from England the ideas that were born from the most ancient ideas of Christianity found resonance with new ideas then finding light in the works of John Locke and other writers on the ideas of Natural Rights.


The ideas of individual freedom had moved into the realm of politics through a process that had been going on for six generations. Getting things straight can take time.


General Gage wrote copious letters to his own commanders in England explaining that he could not seize the leaders of the Rebellion because in their place others would simply take action. Organizing action in New England had become decentralized, with individuals using their ample initiative. In this way the Sons of Liberty came together as a secret society and the Committees of Correspondence began meeting to build consensus.


America would be characterized by the initiative of its people until the present monarchy arose, asserting through changed practice that sovereignty was again held by government instead of by individuals who hired government to handle some things for them. Again, the initiative of a free people has responded to refute that assertion.


The players in this Revolution are very decentralized.


Linda Hunnicutt, the Granny Warrior, met Ron Paul for the first time in 2005 when she was on a personal crusade to stop the busibodiness of government. Linda had become aware that the U. S. Department of Agriculture was interfering with the right of individuals to own exotic animals and become active on the issue.


Linda and her husband were licensed to care for exotic animals for many years, starting a sanctuary for animals in Florida. As a trained caretaker for exotic animals of all species, Mrs. Hunnicutt had bottle raised over 200 orphaned baby monkeys; many of these were sold to zoos or placed with families trained to care for them. When she left Florida she took one small monkey with her. His name is Buddy.


As Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, the people will put up with a lot before they decide that action must be taken. Having heard about legislation that would categorize monkeys as inherently dangerous Linda and her fellow Warrior Granny, Karen Racca from Texas headed to Washington D. C..


Linda and Karen parked their huge RV outside of Congress so they could speak to the Fisheries Committee then meeting that had the power to put an end to such foolishness. The bill under consideration was H. B. 1329. The amendment would keep people from traveling with their monkeys and Buddy would hate that.


Walking in they encountered a slight, gray-haired man who obligingly offered to show them where to go. So Congressman Ron Paul showed them to the Fisheries Committee room. No one ever explained why the Fisheries Committee would be considering the question but it made as much sense as anything in Washington D. C., she figured.


Linda and Racca got the law changed that day. No more trips to D. C. were necessary. Linda is very persuasive.


Linda kept working but she also became aware that there were more issued with government than she had imagined possible.


Then, in March of 2007 a swat team, two sheriffs, and an agent from the USDA came to her door demanding she sign a permit to keep Buddy. Linda was just back from Virginia where she had helped Danny and Cindy Henshaw , whose hogs had been shot dead by the USDA with no notification. Linda was told that if she refused to sign the permit, which would in effect be a contract allowing them access at any time to her home, they would take Buddy away from her right then.


Linda was alone, her husband at work. She leaned her 30/30 rifle up against the door and told them she would not sign. One of the swat team asked her if she was going to shoot someone over a monkey. Linda replied that she would shoot someone over a ground hog if it were her ground hog. Then she broke out her Constitution and Bill of Rights and explained why they did not have a right to come into her home or question her about Buddy.


After the remedial civics lesson Linda suggested they leave. The swat team and sheriffs turned around and left leaving the USDA agent standing there alone. Then he scampered away, too.


Initiative and knowing your rights makes all the difference. Linda could see that immediate action was necessary.


The more Linda had learned about Ron Paul, the nice guy who took time to help her, the clearer it became to Linda that Ron Paul was the only candidate she could trust and so, determined to see him elected President, she took to the road in The Freedom Ride, sharing with ordinary Americans the words and history of a man they could trust to put the Federal government in order, eliminating much of its infrastructure and returning power to the people.


Innovation is the uniting theme of the Ron Paul Revolution, a movement about the people doing it themselves because that is their right. You can buy Miles To Freedom or arrange for Linda and the Freedom Ride to visit your town. Get in touch with her here.


Linda has been at every major Ron Paul event, following the action across the United States. In the last 5 months the crowds have grown in size and become increasingly knowledgeable about what went wrong with government, she says. She would know. Linda represents the original courage and integrity of Americanism. Her travels in the Freedom Ride show just what ordinary people can do.


Today there are 700 Ron Paul Meet-up groups. Tens of thousands of activists are working to elect Ron Paul President of the United States – so he can return America to the form of government agreed on in 1787. Ron Paul activists make their own signs, register Ron Paul Republicans, rally, and let the establishment know that they cannot ignore the people.


At some point they began calling it the Ron Paul Revolution. That is true in ways they cannot even imagine.


The Ron Paul Campaign has a National Headquarters that maintains a website and does fundraising but that is the smallest part of the campaign. The real Ron Paul campaign is being carried out by unpaid activists working in their communities and on line through action taking place with individuals and small, local groups. It is an replication of the original form for cooperative action that empowered the American Revolution. Its activists think of it as Revolution II.


The issue underlying the activism is the form Americans will use to provide services through what we think of as government. The Constitution and Bill of Rights say that if the people can do it themselves, through community or privately, then government has no role. The Ron Paul Revolution is proving that, as was true at the time of the Revolution, the people can do it themselves. Illustrating the truth is the best way to persuade; the Ron Paul Revolution effectively provides the community level infrastructure for local organizing in politics so that other community organizations can take on the jobs that so desperately need doing for all of us.


If we had kept that form at the time of the Revolution we would be better off today, living in communities that were practiced in doing it themselves.


Government has let us know they are not to be trusted or relied on. Katrina and dozens of other incidents, the War in Iraq and the rape of our monetary system, the coming economic meltdown, have let us see their real agenda. George III was a piker in comparison.


Churches, fraternal orders, women's clubs, and the other organizations that once provided nearly all our essential infrastructure can then begin repairing the damage that governments and corporations have caused.


Ron Paul has committed himself to return federal government to the role and power set for in by the Constitution. That is tiny. He has committed to expunge the IRS, the Department of Education and many other agencies that take to themselves the power that is reserved to the people.


When Ron Paul is inaugurated Linda intends to be there with Buddy. It will be one heck of a party for all Americans.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do grow weary of Christians pretending that they invented freedom and individual rights, as well as morality. Two thousand years of history says they most certainly didn't. The welfare state and Marxism are manafestations of Jesus's nasty line about rich men having trouble getting into heaven.

Ron Paul has this atheist's vote because, as a libertarian, he would not impose his superstitions on others. I think he means it. That's what I want from Christians. I want them to leave me alone and mind their own bodies. I doubt they will. They never in history have.