LF: Ron Paul Goes To Bat For Liberty, Peace And Freedom In S.F. Rally

Sept. 5, 2010

Rep. Ron PaulRon Paul (R-Texas) headlined a rally at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza Saturday to boost the candidacy of Republican John Dennis in his longshot bid to unseat Speaker of the House Nancy PelosiNancy Pelosi.

An enthusiastic and liberty-minded crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 people welcomed Paul with cheers, sign-waving and generous applause as he urged San Francisco voters to remember the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Telling the crowd that the philosophy in Washington, D.C., has changed from our Founders’ vision of protecting people from government to government protecting people from themselves, Paul didn’t mince words. “That is very dangerous,” he said, emphasizing the threat to personal freedom and individual rights that has become so prevalent in Washington culture.

Articulating the common-sense message of his non-interventionist foreign policy philosophies, Paul scoffed at the idea being promoted by President Obama that the Iraq War is over. He said that Obama was merely continuing the ideologically flawed BushBush Doctrine of “preventive war.”

“Preventive war doesn’t sound quite as bad as ‘aggression,’” Paul said, “but it’s aggression when you go and start wars and kill people because you don’t like them.” He reminded the crowd that many of the same people being targeted for assassination by Special Operations units in Afghanistan today were allies of the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, when they fought against and defeated more than 500,000 Soviet soldiers with assistance from the United States. Paul quoted poignant lyrics from 1960s singer-songwriter Phil OchsPhil Ochs and the legendary Buffy St. Marie as he drove his anti-war points home to the receptive crowd.

Weighing on the controversy over the proposed Islamic Cultural Center in New York City, Paul was adamant in his defense of property rights and First Amendment right to freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Calling the entire media spectacle surrounding the proposed center “contrived,” Paul said that many of those who oppose it believed that if they could prevent it from being built, “that would mean Islam is guilty.”

Paul also sent a message of support to California voters who support Prop. 19, which would legalize marijuana in the state, by chastising government officials who think it is somehow their duty to monitor what individuals eat, drink or smoke.

Sporting a bright yellow shirt and looking fit and feisty as ever, Paul also spoke out against the so-called “bailout” of huge banks that practically held the government hostage with demands and threats in the last few months of the GeorgeGeorge W. Bush presidency.

“Who got hurt (in the bailout)?” Paul asked rhetorically. “The poor. Who got helped? The banks and the military-industrial complex.” Pelosi, it should be noted, was a staunch supporter of the Bush Bailout even though polls showed most San Franciscans opposed it – at least until the corporate media began pushing the Wall Street talking points that framed it as necessary to save the U.S. economy.

Speaking of corporate media, there was no sign of any reporters or photographers on hand from the city’s leading daily, the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle. Instead of sending someone to cover the rally – held roughly a mile from the Chronicle’s San Francisco offices – the paper published this semi-ridiculous article on Page C-3 of its Sept. 5 edition instead. A search of the paper’s SFGate.com website found no mention of the rally at all.

The other city daily, the Philip AnschutzPhilip Anschutz-owned San Francisco Examiner, did publish a small article on the event. Punditty has to wonder where the reporter got his crowd estimate. During the middle of Paul’s speech, this reporter made a crowd estimate by stepping away and visually segmenting the area into quadrants of approximately 100 people, counting at least 17 such groupings. Perhaps the Examiner reporter made his crowd estimate early, but his estimate of a “few hundred activists” was clearly low, as anyone who was there for Paul’s speech can attest.

While this report has focused mostly on former (and future?) presidential candidate Paul, the non-partisan “Principles Over Parties” rally also sought to raise awareness about Dennis. During his address to the crowd, the first-time candidate summed up his motivation for seeking office, saying “It’s all about you running your life, not the government running it for you.”

Frankly many people would see him as to old. Myself included. If he did win the nomination I would vote for him. Maybe even in the primaries depending on the crowd.

Hell, there are even many DEAD people that would be preferable to the candidates the Ds and Rs currently give us.

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All the disastrous decisions we're dealing with now started with Bush . . .
-Skippy, the boy wonder.