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<\/a><\/p>\nBasements across America were eerily empty today as several hundred Ron Paul acolytes (known as “Granny Warriors”) descended on the grounds of the Capitol this morning for a Freedom Rally.<\/p>\n
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They raged against the empire and demanded that they be heard. The Capitol Police came along and made this guy take down the upside down flag – but it shows the diversity of views and the confusion among many of the Ron Paul supporters as to what the Paul message is.<\/p>\n
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Now, I’m not sure what the bar code on the forehead means, but I’m pretty sure it’s something about the “empire” which I heard discussed time and again. There were several people wearing these, in fact this guy was handing them out and he remarked that he was running out of them.<\/p>\n
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I suppose that the revolutionary-era clothes were supposed to remind us of our roots, but it should also remind us that, although it’s nice to remember those times, it was also a time of an agrarian society with limited communication and a sparse and scattered population. Although the principles of the Constitution still apply, to think that government should return to the size it was in those days is Utopian and juvenile.<\/p>\n
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Russell Means<\/a> is a pretty big guy<\/p>\n Dr. Paul arrived at about 11:30 to a rock star welcome;<\/p>\n [youtube uIaXa1pupPQ nolink]<\/p>\n He addressed his admirers;<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Unfortunately, the public address system didn’t work for the first few minutes so, even though I videoed his speech, I only caught about the last minute;<\/p>\n [youtube -SrGy9lJ7ew nolink]<\/p>\n Although there was little I could disagree with him about, I remember the people who flooded the internet last year and absolutely squelched any debate about him. And that his stance on the war against terror is absolutely infantile and naive.<\/p>\n But it took him about twenty minutes to leave because he signed autographs for his fans;<\/p>\n But when Dr. Paul left, the event didn’t end, they had speakers lined up to talk to the Paulians. Most used populist themes like “out-of-control government” to whip the crowd into a frenzy. I don’t disagree with them on many of their themes, but to base a national campaign on populist sloganeering is a good way to hand the government over to the Left.<\/p>\n This fellow (in the red, white and blue shirt) worried the crowd with charges that “Big Brother” was probably taping them out here (even though they were secreted away on the Capitol grounds where no one could find them) and would record all of their faces for future reference.<\/p>\n This fellow I overheard telling a group of people that he was a New Jersey Republican delegate to the convention and that he was going to vote for Ron Paul at the Republican Convention. He got advice from his (gullible) listeners to not tell anyone – as if they could overturn the convention with their stealth delegates. He told them how he was hated among his fellow delegates because he supported Ron Paul. I suppose there’s some sort of cache in being a rebel among these folks.<\/p>\n There were other speakers scheduled to address the crowd, like Bob Barr, but I needed a beer. Now, Ron Paul acted like the campaign was over for him, but his fans didn’t seem to think so. I hope this doesn’t lead to some sort of Ron Paul Derangement Syndrome.<\/p>\n Although the rally wasn’t as big an event (moonbat-wise) as I’d hoped, there was one bright spot. I got to meet the blogger Charlesr (from the Age of Hooper<\/a> and Hot Air<\/a>) and we swapped Medea Benjamin stories.<\/p>\n UPDATED: I welcome the lizards from LGF<\/a>, and urge ya’all to go look at the work of a real pro; Charles has his post up at Age of Hooper<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n