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Looking Back on 2012
by Sean Gangol
[email protected]

Special to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

I look back on the year of 2012, with much disappointment. Somehow one of the most economically illiterate presidents of all-time managed to hold onto his job for another four years. The Republicans managed to let a man, whose entire legacy as president has consisted of nothing but high unemployment and an out of control debt, beat them in a land-slide. For a brief moment, I almost thought there was actually something to all the crazy theories about the 2012 apocalypse, since this seemed like a clear sign of the end of the world. Right before dogs and cats started living together as Bill Murray said in Ghostbusters. Of course, I really shouldn't have been surprised, considering whom they chose to run in the 2012 elections. Nor should I be surprised at whom the Republicans are blaming for their own failures.

There are still many Republicans out there who are scratching their heads in disbelief, wondering why their guy couldn't have made headway during the elections. Well, I have an answer; however I don't think the old establishment Republicans want to hear it. First of all, just as they did last time, the Republicans failed to reach out to the growing youth vote. Now I know that there are young voters who seem to get most of their information from watching The Daily Show and are only interested in voting for a president if he's hip enough. However, if you take a look at Ron Paul's campaign, he was able to gain quite a bit of support from that age group.

Another group that they failed to reach was women. That doesn't come as much of a surprise to me, since the left had been spewing propaganda about the so-called "War on Women" months before the elections. I have already discussed this in more depth, in one of my pervious articles "Missing the Point." I knew that if the Republicans didn't nip it in the butt right away, it was going to haunt them when the elections rolled around. It turned out that I was right.

Then we have those on the left who will always support their guy, despite all the broken promises that he made. I tell you that there is nothing like watching somebody drive down a road with a peace sign next to an Obama bumper sticker. Apparently, all those kids that have been killed by Obama's drone strikes aren't enough to get the peace movement riled again.

Of course these are all the minor reasons why the Republicans failed to take the presidency. The main people that I blame for Obama's reelection are the old establishment Republicans. Ironically, it is the old establishment Republicans that blame libertarians, the Tea Parties and other members of the Freedom Movement. Recently, Ann Coulter blamed the Tea Parties for the failures of the GOP. The favorite scapegoat of the GOP seems to be Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. I have actually heard conservatives accuse Johnson of being a plant for the Democrats. Considering that the Tea Parties' influence since the 2010 elections has been nonexistent, I find it almost laughable that anybody could place blame on them. I find it down right comical that anybody could blame Gary Johnson, since he was only able to get 1% of the vote. Not nearly enough to be a spoiler. That is also assuming that Johnson supporters would have supported Romney in the first place.

For years, I have been saying that the Republicans needed better candidates then the Neoconservative statists that they have been nominating for the past twelve years. This time around they gave us a man who was basically an "Obama Lite". For crying out loud, he implemented the same Marxist healthcare system that Obama has been trying to push on us, in his home state. Seriously, Republicans, did you really expect this guy to get much support from the Freedom Movement?

Unfortunately, the Republicans were so hell bent on keeping Ron Paul out of the mix that they didn't even bother to reach out to his supporters. Like the 2008 elections, the old establishment did everything it could to belittle and marginalize Ron Paul. This time they managed to cheat by ignoring their own rules in the nomination process. If the old establishment Republicans really valued the votes of the Ron Paul supporters, they could have at least pretended to support some of Paul's ideas, instead of treating them like red headed stepchildren. Sorry, Republicans, but you have nobody else to blame, but yourselves.

Before I conclude this article, I want to point out that the year hasn't been all bad for the Freedom Movement. Recently the people of Colorado and Washington have taken it upon themselves to defy federal mandate by legalizing marijuana. "So what?" you may ask. "Won't the feds just continue with their no-knock raids like they have done in California?" Yes, it is likely that the feds will keep enforcing these unjust laws, but it's not just one state that is defying federal mandate. Eventually other states will soon fellow, which will make it more difficult for the feds to enforce. This is what many of the founding fathers would have referred to as "state nullification." It's not just for pot either. It could be used against Obamacare and the NDAA, which allows people to be detained indefinitely by the military. Many states have done just that. It just may be our last hope to turn the tide in our favor.

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