Ron Paul Supporters at Texas GOP Convention Acted Respectfully, Were Intelligent and Not Crazy

Sometimes a few crazy people can make an entire group look bad. Maybe that is what has happened with Ron Paul supporters. We see some crazy Ron Paul people on the news and we paint the entire group as being crazy. It is like these bad cops who think they are above the law and they break the law and do things like beating people up on video. That is why some people hate cops when, in fact, most cops are doing a great job and risking their lives for us. The problem is that the few bad cops you see on TV unfairly make all cops look bad.

At the 2012 Texas State Republican Convention this past weekend in Fort Worth, TX, I got a chance to meet a group of Ron Paul supporters. I am friends with many Ron Paul supporters but I am not part of any Ron Paul groups so I did not know what to expect. I had seen Internet articles telling people to watch out for Ron Paul people trying to take over conventions, so I was interested to see what would happen. The group that I got to meet did not have signs to stage a protest and they did not walk around asking people to legalize marijuana. In fact, you probably would have never known that they were even Ron Paul supporters. They came off just as very passionate conservatives. You might have known them for years and you might have thought they were probably just members of the tea party. There are many young people in the Ron Paul groups but there are also a surprising number of older people and minorities too. They are a very diverse group. I had great conversations with a Ron Paul group about the Federal Reserve and how printing more money with nothing to back it is destroying our economy by devaluating the dollar and not allowing the market to fix itself. Being in the military myself, I don’t entirely agree with some of Ron Paul’s war policy, but I had a great conversation about war policies and there are actually many things that I do agree with Ron Paul on. The President must not be allowed to start a war without getting congress to approve it. There are checks and balances that must be followed. We are sending money to help terrorist countries. It is especially frustrating now that President Obama is using the military as pawns and taking out bad governments, like Egypt, just to hand the government over to the Muslim Brotherhood.

One gentleman that I talked to has run Christian charities, and one of the reasons he stands with Ron Paul is because the government is slowly taking away our religious liberty. As the head of a Christian charity, he saw firsthand how the rights of Christians to freely practice and express their religious beliefs were being taken away. As a Christian, I know that he is right and this must be stopped. These people were not crazy. In fact, I agreed with most of what these Ron Paul supporters believe, as most conservatives probably do. No, I don’t agree with everything and I have no problem expressing where I do not agree. No one agrees with each other 100% of the time, but the many issues that I do agree with Ron Paul on, Ron Paul is 100% dead-on right.

I even got a chance to explain to these Ron Paul supporters why I was not in favor of Texas being proportional. Earlier this year, the RNC forced Texas to be proportional. Texas had always been winner take all by congressional district. This is what the Republicans in Texas voted to have because it gives Texas more of a say in the Presidential race and makes us more relevant (we have been completely irrelevant in recent Republican Presidential races unfortunately because the race is over before we even vote!) Well, the RNC comes along and tells us we have to be proportional. I stood up to the RNC and told them that they should not bully us and advocated that we stay winner take all by congressional district, which is what we already were before the Republican National Committee forced us to change. I was standing for Texas and what the grassroots in Texas wanted. I was standing for Texas to have a bigger voice instead of being pushed around. Well, I had some Ron Paul supporters upset with me because they thought that the reason I did not want to be proportional was so that I could keep Ron Paul from getting delegates under a proportional system. That is NOT the reason I did not want to be proportional. Hurting or helping Ron Paul was not even a factor in why I was saying NO to the RNC’s proportional system. In fact, I was able to explain that if Texas had gone back to winner take all by congressional district back when there were still four candidates in the race, it was very likely that Romney would not have won Texas and would not have received many of our delegates. This would possibly have forced a brokered convention which would have actually benefited the Ron Paul supporters. So we had a good conversation about that little misunderstanding and cleared some things up.

Ron Paul Supporters were elected to be National Delegates at Texas GOP Convention

Did these Ron Paul supporters try to get fellow Ron Paul supporters elected as national delegates? Sure they did. But who didn’t? The establishment passed out papers telling their people to vote for their establishment candidates. Just about every county Republican group nominated a candidate from their county who they know and are friends with. You had entire counties voting for the candidate from their county vs. candidates from other counties. Every group at the convention tried to put up a candidate to try to be elected to something, so why can’t the Ron Paul supporters do that to? They have every right to put up someone from their group to run.

The Ron Paul supporters I got a chance to meet this past weekend were respectful of the process and did not try to take over anything. They nominated fellow Ron Paul supporters and these nominees then got to stand in front of the entire group of Republicans and explain what they believe and explain why people should vote for them. Some of the Ron Paul supporters got elected by the group and some didn’t. These Ron Paul supporters are not stupid either. From what I got to hear from them, they understand that Romney probably already has the nomination. They understand that the chance of a brokered convention is slim to none unless there is a change of the current rules of how delegates can vote. They understand all that and they are not unrealistic. They were more focused on getting people involved in the process and who will go to the national convention and stand for less government and stand for the constitution. They know that, even though they might not prevail, you cannot give up and you still have to speak up and let your beliefs be heard. There is no chance of America ever going back to following the Constitution if everyone just accepts that the Constitution is gone and stops speaking up about it. They are simply not giving up.

To Defeat Obama, the Republican Party MUST Embrace Ron Paul Supporters. Also, If Romney is Smart, he will Appoint Ron Paul to his Cabinet, Maybe as Head of the Treasury.

Whether you agree with Ron Paul supporters or not, the Republican Party is going to need all hands on deck if we are going to defeat Obama. We will especially need Ron Paul supporters. Obama has the upper hand when it comes to young votes. Ron Paul groups are filled with young voters. Ron Paul groups are also filled with a ton of passion and dedication. By casting out these groups, not only are we losing those young voters, but we are also losing out on the passion and dedication they bring to the table.

The Republican Party must embrace Ron Paul Supporters. It was said to me this weekend that maybe the reason some of the Ron Paul supporters act a little bit crazy is due to the fact that acting crazy is the only way they can be heard. They don’t act crazy because they are crazy. They act crazy as a way to be heard because they have been rejected from the Republican Party and are having to fend for themselves and have to create their own unconventional platforms to speak from to get their message out.

Maybe if Ron Paul supporters were embraced by the Republican Party, we could all sit down together and have a conversation about how we can work together to promote the things that we agree on, like more states' rights, less federal government, following the Constitution, etc. We can work together to defeat Obama. The establishment in the Republican Party might not agree on everything that Ron Paul supporters believe, but there is probably agreement on at least 80% of the issues. The Republican Party could greatly benefit from Ron Paul supports in order to accomplish the many things that both sides agree on. We especially need Ron Paul supporters if we are going to defeat Obama.

After this weekend, I have a new respect for and understanding of Ron Paul supporters, and I fully believe that the Republican Party should embrace them and work with them instead of trying to ignore them. We need them. We might not all agree 100% on everything, but overall, Ron Paul is GOOD for the conservative cause and his supporters can help the Republican Party and help defeat Obama.

I am sure my little brother in high school will love me for writing this article. He is a big Ron Paul fan. I am not sure how he became one or how he even got to know anything about Ron Paul, but it happened. It is happening with youth all across America. It is something that we cannot ignore and we could greatly benefit from if we embrace the youth and passion of these Ron Paul supporters.