Well said!
You say you used to think like Ron Paul. Do you still? He is the only politician, ex or current, who makes any sense to me right now. Are there any otheres that make sense to you?
Politics on the national level is nothing more than entertainment for the masses, population control. On the state level, it is little better in most states. Local politics matter, and that is where we can effect seeing our ways outside of the labyrinth of lies.
I heard someone say, "Ron Paul is my favorite government thug," and I think that sentiment applies to how I feel about him now. He played the political game, which I now find utterly repulsive, but he used it as a platform to challenge the status quo.
Rand Paul is largely in the same camp, as is Thomas Massie. Both are still in office, and Trump has been feuding with them, eapecially Massie. Justin Amash was also a fairly anti-state member of the state. And all four still write and speak to one degree or another.
I can't think of anyone aligned with the Democrats who I can even slightly respect anymore. Bernie Sanders was always too much of a central planner, for example.
Bernie, he was back in the days when I was a practicing Democrat, and I adored him. Now he says things that shock me, central planning things. But
I felt this way about my party when Sanders was so clearly the front runner but wasn't even allowed to run in the primary. It's been downhill for me party-wise ever since then. Now I see practicing fundamentalist Democrats as looney tooners. Practicing Trumpians too. Our practicing voters have been skillfully divided 50-50. Population control.
I especially appreciate your saying this:
I know so many lefties who would do all of this again, and repeat calls for those of us who refused to obey to be sent to concentration camps, demonied, unemployed. That was the Biden admin. This admin is using Nazi tactics to invade public places, homes and businesses to forcibly remove a targeted demographic. The mechanisms to remove any demographic are being developed by this. That has to stop, I do not care what anyone thinks about immigration.
Every bad precedent set will be expanded and abused by the next president. Whether left-wing or right-wing, it's the same vampire.
I think it's harder to find people I can respect at all in politics on the left is because Democrats have both rhetoric and action built on a foundation of benevolent despotism. "Just let government handle it" is their mantra, and they act on it. Where I see the disconnect between word and deed is the talk about police reform and peace abroad resulting in more laws for police to abusively enforce against innocent people and propaganda about how this time, we wage war for peace. The Super Delegates in the DNC blantantly crowning Hillary instead of Bernie was evidence of their real values IMHO.
Republicans, on the other hand, talk about small government and individual responsibility while most of them act to build a bigger police state and military-industrial complex. A few still manage to mostly act like they actually believe in what they say, though. Perversely, it almost seems like a trap to keep people playing their game instead of rejecting it. When Ron Paul threatened the status quo, every effort was made to erase him from discussion even when he was still in the debates and polls. They changed the rules to prevent his delegates from undermining the process. It was less blatant than the DNC, but no less real.