On the Campaign Trail

So yesterday I went out on my own on the Ron Paul campaign trail to get signatures to get Dr. Paul on the ballot for the Virginia primary on March 6th. In Virginia, they require 10,000 signatures and 400 signatures from each congressional district to get the name on the ballot. So when the Campaign for Liberty sent me some petitions with a request to help Dr. Paul, I said why the heck not?!

Well, I haven’t gone door to door since I first moved to Seattle in 1995. That was campaigning with WASHPIRG to save the salmon streams. Now here I am, sixteen years later campaigning for Ron Paul door-to-door.

I spent 3 hours yesterday going door-to-door and gained only 20 signatures. Most people who didn’t sign were either lying when they said they were not registered voters or that they were not really registered to vote. Others said no way- that they are voting Democrat. A few said they didn’t know anything about Ron Paul. A couple merely shut the door in my face. Still others were extremely nice and signed my petition just to help me out. A couple of people said they loved Dr. Paul and grabbed my petition right away! One African-American answered the door and I asked if her parents were home, oops—she said she was over 18 and after my apologies saying she looked so young, she signed my petition. A few people were foreigners but exclaimed their appreciation that they would soon become American citizens and some were from out of state. One nice guy told me he was from Texas and way to go!

So, I get home 20 signatures later and myself feeling somewhat patriotic I made the effort then somewhat disgusted with the apathy and ignorance still running rampant in the general American
public. Ah, democracy!!

My friend calls me.

“Hey come over, I have some Ron Paul people here,” he says.

So I go over and gathered 6 more signatures. One was my friend of course. Two were some old biker dudes. One lady was a biker chick who said she wanted to know Ron Paul’s stance on bringing the troops home.

“He wants to bring them home now,” I replied. She immediately signed.

The other two was a couple who just happened to be there. A guy and his girlfriend who looked like they were about 20 years old. They started talking to me about stuff I didn’t even know about Ron Paul. They informed me of a protest going on at the Federal Reserve this weekend. Apparently they had just viewed some films about the Federal Reserve.

“I never used to care much about politics,” she said, “But it has gotten to the point you have to do something. I’m so glad someone is doing something,” she said as she signed my petition.

Amazing. Even though Ron Paul is supposed to be a “fringe” candidate, 20-somethings know more about him than I do. He has cured the apathy of today’s youth.

So all in all I guess it was a success. 26 signatures, my faith in Ron Paul confirmed, my faith in the youth of today restored, and Democracy still alive and well in America…at least for a while longer.

Personal Bailout

Well, I am back to write in my blog.  I’ve been distracted lately and haven’t been writing because I have been searching for a job nonstop down here in Florida.  Apparently, there is a hiring freeze going on.  My job history is great, my references are great, but yet I still have been unable to find a position.  I’ve met with about 6 recruiters in the past month.  They all tell me the same thing, no law firms are hiring until after the inauguration. This sucks because I am not going to be able to pay my bills this month.  I need a personal bailout.  Which leads me to my topic for this entry- why does the government run to the rescue of greedy corporations when they should be rescuing people like me who are struggling to make car payments?  The government could have given each tax paying American 2 million dollars each instead of trying to “bailout” these greedy corporations who basically have screwed us over.  I’m sure that if each tax paying American received 2 million dollars each then the economy would spring back into action.  I guess the reason why the government decided to come to wall street’s rescue is because there really isn’t 700 billion dollars, the government has just created this money (like monopoly) and has given the federal reserve a blank check to make all this new unmarked money that  basically has no worth.   The only worth it has is because we believe it to have worth.

We are dealing with play money here.  Before the 1960’s each note that was issued had to be backed by some percentage of gold.  Do you think that our country has 700 billion dollars of gold laying around in a secret vault somewhere?  Hardly.  Check out what Ron Paul has to say about the federal reserve then decide for yourself.  There’s a lot I don’t really know about economics but I do know that instead of builiding our economy on the foundation of sand we should build it on rock.  How can we get back to that?  There needs to be some sort of revolution I suppose.  The thing is, most people are so apathetic today that no one really wants to make that breakthrough.  All great societies fall.  Well back to job hunting….