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A truly frightening situation would be in the near impossible case that Ron Paul does get elected president: that he ends up looking just as paralyzed and neute

• stcredzero 15y ago
  ...we find out that it isn't a matter of conviction or fearlessness but that the collective power of interest groups... The collective power of interest groups is indeed the key. The horror of slavery wasn't abolished by President Lincoln's stand on principle. It was an alignment of the industrial North's economic/geopolitical interests with the principled stand of abolitionists. Lincoln merely walked to the front of the parade and raised his baton. The Emancipation Proclamation was pragmatic, not principled. Even Gandhi was doing this. He was able to align the interests of the average Indian villager with the principle of Indian independence, and get the population to understand it through clear material examples. (Cloth and salt.) "The collective power of interest groups" is the reality, the landscape of politics. Those who fight battles and wage campaigns on this landscape had better be aware of its shape and implications. Wars are not won by those who "want it" bad enough. The energy of fervor needs to be directed in the most effective fashion.