The Brushfires of Freedom are Burning: Ron Paul Wins CPAC 2011

For the second year in a row, the Congressman from Texas, Dr. ron Paul, has owon the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Straw Poll, with 30% of the total vote, the question eing, "WHo is your first choice for a 2012 presidential candidate?" Mitt Romney came in second place, with 23%, and various other presidential hopefuls trailed with 6% or less. The audience, aside from a few Romney fanatics, gave a thunderous cheer for Congressman Paul after the announcement of his victory, as shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgTKHozcFLA

This leads me off on a small tangert actually, which twill tie in well to the overall theme of this artiicle (eventually.) FOX News' coverage of Paul's victory made me lose much respect for the network, which purposefully worked to dupe the American public, ignoring both CSPAN's and their own live feeds. The network put up footage from last year's CPAC, in which their microphone was right in the middle of Mitt Romney's gang of supporters. When Ron Paul won in 2010, all of the Romney supporters booed him and the microphone made it seem as if the whole crowd was doing the same. They played this footage and then asked Dr. Paul what he thought of being booed. Despicable. Additionally, I was extremely angered by Donald Trump's declaration that "Ron Paul could never become president." How dare he? Yes, he's a powerful businessman, but he ahas absolutely no policy experience, and, in reality, is kind of a schmuck.This fact leads me to the fact that it seems as the entire media seemed to write off Paul as nothing more than a minor threat, and I personally believe that this downplay of the congressman's victory shows the true fear of the establishment that a true patriot, one who is adherent to the constitution, might depose either Barack Obama. However, moving on, let's look at the speech.

"THe Brushfires of Freedom are Burning" is what Ron Paul's speech has come to be labeled as, and though it admittedly was not as eloquent as it could have been, it got the points across. Dr. Paul concisely and charismatically attacked the endless spending of the Federal government, promised to vontinue trying to audit and limit the power of the Federal Reserve, and warned that we ought to listen to the founding fathers and the constitution. He went on to say that we as a nation should stay out of the internal affairs of other nations, stop providing foreign aid, and ltimately limit outr military presence abroad. A personal favorite line of mine was something long the lines of, "all foreign aid is is making poor people poorer in the United States abd making rich people richer abroad." One rarely finds truer words, and even if you don't agree with Dr. Paul, you cannot deny that it is quite admirable that he tells it like he sees it. However, the speech itself is much better than my commentary on it, so I invite you to view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM8d_Arjz6g

And, what we need to rememebr as we head into 2012 is that after CPAC, Ron Paul can truly be considered a frontrunner in the republican primaries. Realize that Ronald Reagan won the straw poll in 1976, 1980, and 1984, immediately preceding his presidency, and that George W. Bush won in 2000. So, watch out for Paul, as despite what FOX and the Donald say, he can take Obama. On a side note, Rasmussen and Gallop polls have Paul ahead of Romney, Sarah Palin, and, in many cases, President Obama by more thn a few percentage points. Happy thinking!

Live long, prosper, may the force be with you, and most improtantly, fare well.

~ Jeffrey