Past Episodes:
Episode 1 voting and you: -chris
Episode 2 police and protests: -tony
Episode 3 Guest Preacher: -Alyssa Kopf
Episode 4 John Hickenlooper and the CCMEP: -tony
Episode 5 The Peace Candidate: Guest Preacher, Sunny Dawn Freeman Genz
Episode 6 Stomping on Haiti: Guest Preacher, Gary Swing
Episode 7 Advice to an 18 year old: -tony
Episode 8 Deep in the Heart of a Red State: -librarytroll
Episode 9 Statement on Ward Churchill: -Breakdown Book Collective
Episode 10 9/11: The Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century?: - Gary Swing
Episode 11 Don't Have a Cow, Man: - Gary Swing
Episode 12 When Clinton Lied, Yugoslavia Died - Gary Swing
Episode 13 Why I support Ron Paul (and Hitler) - Tony Shawcross

Please note, the views of the Soapbox Preachers are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of denverevolution. Any facts presented have not been confirmed by denverevolution.
If you're interested in preaching from the soapbox, please send to c(at)denverevolution(dot)org

Episode 13: Why I support Ron Paul (and Hitler): Guest Preacher, Tony Shawcross, February, 2008

This soapbox is just an e-mail I sent to my friend Mike Hyland, who holds the record of remaining a close friend of mine for longer than anyone else in the world. He sent some message, linking to Obama's "Yes I can" YouTube video and said something about "drinking the Kool-Aid with both hands and eyes wide open".

To understand the context of the message below, its important to know that much of the foundation of my friendship with Mike is talking about how much smarter he and I are than the rest of the world. We're both incredibly judgmental and sometimes even egotistical. The people who like Mike (and that's not everyone) love the fact that he states his opinion forcefully and clearly and shamelessly. I like it when he acts like everyone who disagrees with him is an idiot, even if I'm one of the idiots. Its so much more interesting than someone who sits in the corner afraid to speak.

Those who know and love him also know that he isn't half as self-assured as he appears, and that his bluntness should never be confused with closed-mindedness, as he's always up for a debate and will even change his mind on a topic in the rare occasion that someone else has actually pondered a question more deeply and clearly than Mike, and can offer a better opinion.

My 'epiphany' may not be such an epiphany for the less-judgmental, less-outspoken people in the world... but I have a hunch that a lot of the people who are FAR less outspoken than MIke or myself are no less judgmental, and will thus find the message below somewhat enlightening.

So, that's enough background. Here's the email I sent him today about why I support Ron Paul (and Hitler).

Mike,

Your Kool-aid metaphor made me think of an epiphany I recently had, which I haven't gotten to write much about or ponder enough lately, so I'm going to write a LONG email about it. I'm writing it to you as much for myself as for you, but you sparked me thinking about it and I wanted to share it with you because I think you and I have a lot in common (In a lot of good ways) but also in the "bad" sense that we tend to discount people and ideas easily... More easily than we should. We tend to throw out the baby with the bath-water... I think that's the right idiom for what we do.

So... Speaking of your "kool aid" reference, I watched a great documentary about jim jones' life a couple months ago. I was surprised to learn that I really liked him and so would've you. He just went crazy in the 70's and kept going downhill for the last few years of his life and took the whole "miracle" down with him. That movie kicked off a chain of experiences for me that turned out to be a really enlightening lesson about not discounting "idiots".

Jim Jones and Hitler:

I tend to view things so black and white, and if someone is an idiot or does something wrong like says "I believe in god" or makes a few thousand people drink poisoned Kool-aid, I decide they're a moron who has nothing to offer, file them away in "T" for trash and save time and energy knowing I don't have to listen to anything they say from then on.

But really, everyone is a moron on some level, and I rob myself of some valuable lessons when I write them off completely because of one or two views I disagree with.

One problem with society is that you are SUPPOSED to act that way. Like for me to say "hitler had some shit right" would get me in trouble. Any politician who said "hitler did a good job on this issue" could kiss his career goodbye... but hitler was probably a smart, "good guy" in a couple small areas. Even if he was only right 1% of the time, we're fucking ourselves-over if we say "I have nothing to learn from this guy because he was mostly bad and did this horrible thing of killing millions of people". ;)

That's the extreme case, so maybe I shouldn't have started with that one, but its true. Its like we don't trust ourselves to judge right and wrong on our own, so if we encounter a dogma or see a person preaching some version of right and wrong, we feel we have to accept it whole-heartedly, or dismiss it all-together, but they're all right AND wrong. Nothing is 100% perfect or complete. Anything that is truly flawless is likely to be so incomplete that it is useless in a complex world.

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich:

So, I remember being disappointed when I learned Ron Paul wants to over-turn Roe V Wade. I liked 80% of what he was preaching so much, he convinced me to start reflecting on my views surrounding gun rights and the right to choose, as well as some of my thoughts regarding the value of providing social services to disadvantaged communities, because I was searching for him to be 100% right. In the end, I did reflect on those views, and decided for myself that your right to own a gun doesn't outweigh my right to live in a community where people aren't going to get shot.

I don't think I'm going to win that "battle" but I want guns to be very difficult to own and obtain. So strike one for Ron Paul. Similarly, I want people to be free to make their own choice around abortion, and I think Ron Paul is just wrong on that issue (I found his perspective on the issue to be compelling and flawless... just incomplete).

Those conclusions left me depressed about the presidential candidate options, and steered me back to Dennis Kucinich, as the only candidate for whom I could not find anything in his policies with which I disagree... But as I soon learned (thanks to my "secret" epiphany) that was a mistake.

The Bleeping Secret (AKA Mr. Emoto and Ramtha):

I watched another movie after the Jim Jones doc called "The Secret". It is another metaphysical film, like "what the bleep", and it was the film that really drove home my revelation that we need to look for value, even in packages that are flawed or perhaps make us sick. One second in "the secret" some interviewee would be preaching some message that I know in my core is 100% wrong, misguided, naive, and bad for the planet.

I'll spare you the details/specifics for now, but a few minutes later, that same person said something that was 100% right, insightful, and a lesson that would transform the experience of life on earth for humans if people would live by it. I thought back to "what the bleep" and how I had completely written that film off, after I learned one of the interviewees was RAMTHA, a million-year-old spirit, and after learning that the "Emoto Water-crystal experiment" and other "science" that the filmmaker used to justify his theories were just completely bunk.

But that was only robbing myself of the value that was in that film. Even if 50% of it was bullshit, there was some great perspective offered in that film, unlike anything Hollywood ever produces, and it was unwise of me to dismiss it completely because one or two parts were just laughable.

I reflected: Ron Paul is (in my book) probably 70 or 80% right. Even if he's not, I find his ideas compelling enough to deserve a chance and get out there. So, as soon as I finished "the secret", I logged on to his website and donated $25. I don't care if he's DEAD WRONG on some major issues.

No presidential candidate in the world is going to be 100% right to me, except for me. and I don't want to run. So the next best thing I can do is support someone who has the bravery and the honesty to take a stance on issues that they know have no chance of winning, and trust the public enough to be willing to say something that they know many people will disagree with. Other politicians are slimy blobs of vague-ness on many issues... And not because they're torn both ways in a world that isn't black and white and often doesn't really offer a "right" choice. That would be respectable. But, they're slimy and vague because they don't trust you and me to still support them if we disagree with them on 10-20% of the issues... like we do with anyone we really know well in a real way.

They are part of the system that tells us to embrace the bible entirely or else we're going to hell. They buy into the same political system that says "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists". They're afraid to counter the mainstream stance of their political party... Which unfortunately makes them immeasurably more effective in that system than a man like Ron Paul.

BUT, that's only the case because us voters buy into their bullshit game and play along. As soon as we stop searching for the myth of perfection, start trusting ourselves to look for gold in the dirt (or dirt in the gold), realize how to separate the baby from the bath-water... We can start electing public officials who are real people, with real flaws, and real shortcomings and we can embrace those shortcomings and flaws in them and in ourselves...

Ron Paul clearly investigates and thinks deeply about the issues, and doesn't just talk in soundbites. In fact, in soundbytes, he sounds insane... the kind of guy who might say "hitler could teach us a thing or two about public policy". He's not crazy, and he has a policy approach in government that he believes will lead to the most good for the most people. He stands up to the corporations and military industrial complex who own the rest of the government, and to me, that's the big issue, an issue big enough for me to support him for president.

Maybe at least we'll show the other candidates that they can be honest and real and still get support. Maybe they're realize that in the net2.0 world, its better to be real and reach the people who agree with you, even if they're way down the "long tail", because the generic, slimy, one-size-fits-all Romney speak of the last century isn't what people are "googling" today.

They want to connect on a deeper level and when we start putting ourselves out there in a way that even allows for true connection, we'll all start learning to accept imperfection in ourselves, and even in our elected officials, because perfection doesn't exist anyway.

I'm gonna post this on my MySpace blog.

Love Tony

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