As the presidential race unfolds, citizens of the United States have been introduced to a handful of individuals who are seeking to be the leader of our nation. Do you know which candidate will help you be a better parent?
Sifting Through The Ads and The Issues
During campaign season, we are inundated with political ads, presidential debates, straw polls, and media influence. For many citizens, the most important issues focus on the the candidates’ plans for the economy, how to tackle the mounting federal debt, and our military’s role in international affairs.
For conscientious parents, I know there is another important issue that is often ignored by the mainstream media: our children’s well-being. I want to know the candidates’ beliefs on issues like mandatory vaccinations and my right to raise my child in the manner I think is best.
How I Learned About Liberty
I have learned that Dr. Ron Paul supports the choices I make as a well-informed mom.
My journey to understanding liberty began when I first became a parent. Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and taking notes in history class weren’t enough to help me understand how important personal freedoms really are.
I grew up in a small, close-knit rural community and attended good schools. I never had the need to question the personal freedoms Ron Paul values so highly, freedoms that he is willing to vote for every single time. His colleagues and constituents know that Dr. Paul does not vote for a measure unless it is authorized by our Constitution. I took those freedoms for granted until the birth of my firstborn.
Just a few weeks before I held my baby, I was filled with worry. But I didn’t have the worries that most parents have about putting the finishing touches on the nursery or getting that last home improvement project finished before Baby arrives. My husband and I had met with a doctor to ask about a certain hospital policy.
We knew that we wouldn’t be able to bring our baby home from the hospital. Our son had a rare condition that was “incompatible with life,” as the doctors had stated. We wanted to make sure that our baby’s brief time with us was pain-free and peaceful, and we were told that hospital policy required that babies who die while in their care must undergo resuscitation efforts.
In most circumstances, parents would be comforted by this provision, knowing that medical professionals would do anything they can to save their baby, but in our situation the rule designed for the masses was not in our baby’s best interests. To have peace of mind, knowing that our baby could die peacefully in our arms, we needed to meet with several different doctors to know with certainty that in our unique situation they would not follow the rules.
I learned at that difficult time in my life that the rules that are designed to protect the masses at the same time also limit important personal freedoms.
Mom and Dad, Meet Ron Paul
Fast forward to 2007 when a friend mentioned Ron Paul’s name to me. His name rarely appeared in the media and so at first I dismissed his credibility, regarding him as unworthy of my vote. I focused on the candidates whose names made the news.
However, as I understood more about the meaning of individual liberty — prior to becoming a mom, I had failed to examine my freedoms as an individual and a U.S. citizen — I deeply appreciated Ron Paul’s positions on important issues. In our country, we often talk about free speech, but there are many other personal freedoms that have fallen under constant attack, as we will explore later.
Then I wondered why Ron Paul didn’t receive more positive coverage on television and in newspapers. This man was full of good ideas! Why didn’t people listen? With an increase in understanding of Ron Paul’s push for restoring choice and freedoms to individuals, I realized the reason he wasn’t making the right kind of headlines: because the companies who make the headlines didn’t want him to take away their power and give it back to the people.
I had the pleasure of introducing my children to Dr. Ron Paul at my state’s Republican convention. He smiled at them and told them they were the future of our country.
By that time I knew that his voting record matches his words. My children were starstruck at that moment, but their admiration for Ron Paul evolved into a deeper respect as we had continuing conversations about his ideals for families around the world.
The Republican Party would not allow Dr. Paul to speak at the convention, so, on a beautiful spring morning, he confidently took his campaign outside and spoke about Liberty and the wisdom of our Constitution to a few hundred followers. I felt so frustrated that people who were my elected leaders would not allow this man, who was full of intelligent ideas and common sense, to share his platform with the people inside the civic center. I also felt empowered to know that through my vote for Ron Paul, I could have a say in returning the state of my country to its roots in democracy and personal freedom and maintain the freedoms I need to be a good parent.
The Need for a Revolution
When you hear the word “revolution,” do images from your high school history book come to mind as you recall the Revolutionary War or the Industrial Revolution? Scientific, political, and industrial revolutions in past centuries have shaped our society today.
Ron Paul and his supporters are calling for a revolution. Key events in our country in the past decade have increased the need dramatically for a president who values individual liberty.
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security granted additional immunity to pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits from vaccine injuries.
That bill includes further provisions regarding vaccinations, including granting the government the power to mandate forced vaccinations as a “countermeasure” against terrorism, and granting Congress the power to extend that provision indefinitely. Ron Paul opposed these measures and voted against the bill, as did 121 other representatives of the people.
Just last year, our elected leaders voted to extend expiring provisions of The Patriot Act for four more years, granting our government the right to seize property without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, conduct surveillance efforts without identifying the subject, and grants the issuance of national security letters, which enable the government to collect “communication, financial and credit records of anyone deemed relevant to a terrorism investigation even if that person is not suspected of unlawful behavior.”
Do you think those infringements on personal freedom and privacy don’t apply to you? There are even more ways that the government is intruding on your rights as a parent.
This past fall, as students returned to their classrooms, many schools required the administration of certain vaccinations, including the whooping cough vaccine, currently the deadliest vaccine on record, in order for children to attend classes. Most schools did not explain to parents’ their right to refuse, through medical, philosophical, or religious exemption. Ron Paul understands with conviction that parents should have the right to choose which substances are placed into their children’s bodies.
In California, some schools even resorted to sending nurses door-to-door to administer the whooping cough vaccine to schoolchildren, the injection responsible for over half of the death and damage awards from our governments National Child Vaccine Injury Act. In that same state, proposals were also made to vaccinate students without their parents’ consent. The controversial Gardasil vaccine continues to be marketed to young boys and girls as young as nine years old. Ron Paul understands that these measures infringe on our freedom as parents to choose how to raise our children.
Ron Paul and Vaccinations
As parents who research the safety and efficacy of vaccines, we already know that we have to do our homework. We can’t trust our child’s doctor to tell us which ingredients are in the vaccines; we have to ask for the package insert and read it ourselves. We can’t trust the nurses to know all of the dirty little secrets that the vaccine manufacturers know. We know we can’t trust our nation’s leaders to make decisions about our child’s health care. That is our job as parents, and Ron Paul knows that.
Ron Paul does not support mandatory vaccinations. In his platform, he states that the “government should do no harm” and that “the cozy relationship between organized medicine and government must be reversed.” He has also stated that “we must remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care.” Ron Paul believes that “government exists to protect liberty” and that “the lives and actions of people are their own responsibility, not the government’s.”
We are catalysts for the change we wish to see in our country, and Ron Paul is our vehicle for change. Vaccination rates are dropping. More parents are realizing that the ingredients in vaccines are unsafe for their children’s bodies. Yet the list of vaccine mandates and government ways to enforce those mandates continues to grow.
Now, more than ever, we need to elect leaders who will listen to our concerns and honor the provisions of our Constitution, to protect our personal freedoms. Ron Paul is the leader who will grant us the safe return of our individual liberties, the candidate who will help us be better parents, by ensuring that parents have the power to make their own choices about their children’s health.
“No single person, including the President of the United States, should ever be given the power to make a medical decision for potentially millions of Americans. Freedom over one’s physical person is the most basic freedom of all, and people in a free society should be sovereign over their own bodies. When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies.” ~ Dr. Ron Paul
Electability is a Non-Issue
According to recent polls and news stories, including one from CBS News and one from CNN, Ron Paul is a highly electable candidate. He is currently favored by numerous sources to be the Republican candidate poised to beat Barack Obama in the election.
In the quest to preserve the personal freedoms that we need as parents to raise our children well, voting our conscience always takes precedence over electability issues anyway. As stated by John Quincy Adams, one of our country’s early presidents, we should “always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” Besides, we know better by now than to rely on the mainstream media to help us make important decisions.
Vote to Be a Better Parent
Once upon a time, parents trusted their child’s doctor to give them all of the information they would need to keep their child healthy. Those same parents trusted their lawmakers to pass laws that were in the best interests of their family, not in the best interests of special interest groups.
We need a fundamental change in our government. Today we know that in the real world, vaccines are full of toxins and our government is full of behind-the-scenes provisions for special interests groups.
Our children deserve better than that. They deserve a president who values individual liberty and parents’ rights more than corporate and government interests, and Ron Paul is the best candidate to fulfill that important role in our children’s future, ultimately helping us be better parents.
Sources:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul66.html
http://www.nvic.org/vaccine-laws/homeland-security/briefing-paper.aspx
http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/health-care/
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1009&Itemid=50
Paul, Ron. Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom.
http://www.aclu.org/reform-patriot-act
http://www.infowars.com/door-to-door-vaccinations-training-the-public-for-forced-innoculation/
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-elitist-charlie-rose-invokes-ron-paul-electability-myth/
http://www.gardasil.com/vaccine-for-cervical-cancer/hpv-infection/
http://www.nvic.org/Vaccines-and-Diseases/Whooping-Cough.aspx
Photo Credit: John Delano
