Where Do Small Government Supporters Turn When They Lose?

Why, the federal government, of course! Supporters of Ron Paul are upset that their candidate did not win. Instead of just learning what they can from the campaign and applying it to other candidates, they are filing a lawsuit asking the federal government to intervene in the nominating process of a political party.

The legal filing, which names Priebus and GOP chairmen in every state as defendants, “seeks the guidance of the court” on whether the plaintiffs are free to break with certain state party rules and vote for the candidate of their choice at the August convention.

The plaintiffs claim that so-called “binding” delegate rules – in which delegates are required to vote for the winner of their state’s primary or caucus at the convention – violate federal law and prevent delegates from exercising their “Constitutional right to vote their conscience” in Tampa.

I must have missed that part of the Constitution that specifies one’s right to vote at any private gathering. It’s worth adding that Ron Paul’s spokesperson says that they have nothing to do with this lawsuit and they do not support it at all.

This appears to be a case of folks who are all for small government until they decide they want to make government work for them to get what they want.

20 thoughts on “Where Do Small Government Supporters Turn When They Lose?”

  1. I honestly do not believe that the primaries should be considered private voting establishments.

    My reason for this is all the laws the two party system has passed restricting access by smaller parties. It constitues a heavily armored incumbant party structure.

    Frankly, as such, I believe Federal law should regulate primaries. Establish a mandatory date for all state primaries and perhaps allow caucuses to conduct one month earlier.

    I am sick and !@#$% tired of being handed two lame-arse candidates to choose from. And no, I don’t ever get a choice, because in Pennsylvania our primary is so late that when there might be 20 candidates to start with, by the time I vote…there is ONE.

    The system is broke, it needs fixing, and if it is not fixed it will facilitate the failure of this nation.

    1. Actually, you did have a choice this year if you voted in the GOP primary. Romney still did not have enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee-to-be at the time of the Pennsylvania primary.

      The complaints about third party ballot access issues are a common and reasonable concern, but that’s a matter of ballot access laws, not calling on the federal government to force private groups to abandon their internal voting policies.

      1. And out of a number of candidates we had… 3? One who is the next coming of (insert a deity that isnt Jesus here but looks like Ron Paul), a Massachusetts progressive, or a guy everyone made fun of because he holds his convictions.

        Well, at least one of them knows how to run a business and a campaign.

    2. This is an example of where we have deep problems, but not just at the national level. This problem goes all the way down to local levels of government!

      And it will be very difficult to root it out, unfortunately.

  2. I know this idea would be too extreme to ever be considered, but I have long advocated that there should be a constitutional amendment prohibiting government from granting special standing or status to anything resembling what we call a “political party,” and the Founders called “factions.” Election laws and the mechanisms for elections should be designed for individuals only. Certainly political parties would still exist, but they should never be granted special privileges and dispensations in return for electoral success; that only allows power achieved to be consolidated, absent any other virtue.

    We have evolved to where the government isn’t the government — it’s the two political parties. How like the Soviet Union, and its single party! The “government” is only the structure they and their patrons use to wrestle for power. As predicted by the anti-Federalists, the result has been factions seeking only their own welfare, and not the welfare of the country.

  3. The GOP is NOT a private group – it is a “private-public partnership” – or in other words it is a fascist group. As such it is subject to the socialist-fascist rule of law currently in power.

    1. Wow. I’m glad you said that — but I’d be prouder of myself if I’d said it first.

      I’ve been preaching for awhile that we are in a position analogous to that of the German people in the early 1930s, when they were stuck between the communists and Nazis, and they made a choice — when either choice was going to lead to disaster.

      And oh yeah, fascists will really support gun rights.

  4. Where do bitter people turn when they like to pile on? To nonsensical sarcastic blog posts of course!

  5. I hope the jaded Dr. Paul supporters see there is no way to reform the GOP. Sure, you’ll get an Amash here and there but the money will always prevail. The Libertarian Party is running a quality candidate with experience a record of common sense.

  6. Bitter, I really don’t understand where you are coming from in your post. Is this a slam at small gov’t proponents supposed hypocrisy?

    Ron Paul was on Morning Joe on MSNBC (bleh) this morning for a few minutes. One of the questions asked of him was if he was going to collect social security while in retirement, like it was stupid of a small gov’t advocate to draw on what he’s paid into all his life.

    Don’t you think it’s rational for small gov’t supporters to use the force of government to enforce contracts that big gov’t supporters would use on them?

    I was under the impression small gov’t supporters only want to restrict government to follow true constitutional limits. Guess I’m wrong.

    1. There is nothing wrong with using the courts to enforce a contract. There is something wrong with using the federal courts to try and re-write the contracts just because you don’t like the outcome anymore. This lawsuit is a waste of time and a waste of taxpayer resources in taking up the time of the courts. They are also trying to assert that the Constitution somehow sets the rules of how private groups hold elections.

      1. I still don’t understand the point of this post. You act as if all Paulites are monolithic. I think this is a waste of time and money as well, and a lot of Paulites agree. These people are frustrated with the GOP delegate process (and rightly), but this is a poor move by them.

        But they are still only 100 of hundreds of thousands if not millions of supporters.

        So there really isn’t a point to this post, but it does show your irrational hate against Paul and his supporters.

        1. Actually, I made it a point to highlight that the Ron Paul campaign doesn’t support this action, so it’s actually a kudos to him and his supporters who accept the rules for what they are.

      2. There is something wrong with using the federal courts to try and re-write the contracts just because you don’t like the outcome anymore.

        Welcome to the world of realpolitik. I don’t play that game myself but Paulites do.

        They are also trying to assert that the Constitution somehow sets the rules of how private groups hold elections.

        The GOP isn’t a private group. It’s the right wing of the Party. Since we have a unique political system that combines fascism, socialism, and constitutionalism this makes political sense. Hey – you believe in working within the system, right?

  7. Maybe we need to coin a new word — “a critic” suggested “fascist,” but that comes with too much baggage — but, any entity that conducts any part of its affairs (like primary elections) on the taxpayer’s dime certainly doesn’t deserve the rights reserved for “private” entities. Maybe the law is the law, as things stand today, but the entities that are the government should not be insulated from either public responsibility or accountability.

    1. Fascism is the correct word so far as I know. Socialism replaces the private with “public” exclusively, it is only fascism which uses the charade of allegedly separate public and private entities working in unison.

      1. I agree with you completely, on the basis of formal definitions, but sadly for us nit-pickers, language is what it is and so “fascism” can’t have happened here, because, well, it just can’t.

        That comes from the same place that the rule “First person to cite the Nazis loses the debate,” no matter how apt the comparison may be.

        1. According to Wikipedia Godwin’s law is actually “”As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.””

          Fascism is happening here, it has been so for a long time.

          The idea that comparing totalitarian jingoist governments is an automatic debate loss is a heinous and evil act of censorship. It should be rejected and attacked at every opportunity.

          1. This is an extremely weird, pop-culture analogy I’m sure, but I sometimes think of the scene in the movie “Titanic” where the ship’s designer/engineer says, “That the ship will sink is now a mathematical certainty. . .”

            “A Critic” is expressing the frustration that it is an almost mathematical certainty that our society will now sink ever deeper into fascism, and that calling it by its right name will not be listened to, nor will it change anything.

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