As the lyrics of the old Frank Sinatra, ballad, “Downtown,” go:

When you're alone and life is making you lonely,
You can always go...downtown.
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know...downtown....

The lights are much brighter there.
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares.
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown...no finer place, for sure
Downtown...everything's waiting for you....

And, you may find somebody kind to help and understand you,
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along.

So maybe I'll see you there.
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares.
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown....

Many of the contributors to the Townhall site, I think, are like the individual to which Sinatra’s lyrics speak.  More and more, with the Republican Party in self-destruct mode, “conservative," particularly, “neo-conservative,” Americans are finding themselves outside the mainstream of American political thought.  Republicans have abandoned the party in droves.  The membership has shrunk enormously.  Over 70% of the country wants the War in Iraq to end, whereas all of the Republican Presidential candidates, save one, Congressman Ron Paul, are calling for staying the course until we achieve clear victory.

Given the current state of affairs, how any of the current Republican Party members can believe that they can defeat the Democrats in 2008 is mind boggling.  There is a need for new thinking to offset the disaster that the current Administration has wrought.  Congressman Paul is providing that new way, which is not so new, in that he is an old-time Constitutional Republican who values freedom and liberty.  But, at the same time, it is new in that his message is attracting disenchanted people back into the party, as well as new converts from Independents and even Liberal Democrats.  It is this new blood that will enable the Republicans to win in 2008, because Ron Paul is the only candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton. 

So, Republicans coming to Townhall have become “downtownies” in that they are looking for support for their views that are verging on becoming irrelevant.  It is a little like the risks of inbreeding.  Everything looks fine until the “downtownies” realize that they have been giving birth to “bleeders.”  The Republican Party is bleeding to death and the "downtownie" Republicans simply divert attention from this internal bloodletting by discussing terror, the threat of Islamofascism, and the purported blood bath that will ensue should we leave Iraq, while they are mutually swabbing the blood off each other before it becomes noticeable.

Before I go too far, I should say that this post is my response to a comment to my previous blog posting, “Ron Paul: Color Him Left...Right...Or Just Flat Wrong?” which was posted by shrugged0106.  My reply grew much too long and thus found its way here, instead.  I entitled my comment:  To Be Or Not To Be--A Hardcore "Townie?”   It began this way.

As the Great Bill (not Billary) wrote:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them....?

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong...."

Regarding any discussion of Ron Paul, shrugged0106 mused as to whether "hardcore 'townies' (might)...move beyond the tried and true...'but, but, but, he's a kook' lines."  He was obviously doubtful that they could.  However, I am more interested in reaching the softcore "townies." 

The way I see things, hardcore "townies" don't question their prized beliefs, because they are on the DOWN side of the UP-DOWN continuum that I discussed in the preceding post, and, of course, to the RIGHT, thus tending toward authoritarianism.  Perhaps, this is a result of growing up with parents who bent them in that direction and/or, perhaps, as Shakespeare wrote, because of "suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."  In contrast, Ron Paul and his supporters are on the UP side of the vertical continuum and may be anywhere on the horizontal continuum from LEFT to RIGHT.

The problem on Townhall is that many hardcore "townies" ("downtownies" takes on a new meaning now, doesn't it?) take up their verbal "arms" against their lifelong "sea of troubles," not in an effort to end them at their sources, which they might do, if they stopped to question the cherished dogma that they espouse, but by mounting vicious and persistent attacks on those whom them perceive as thinking differently from themselves or whom they perceive as weak.  What they don't realize is that such behavior only perpetuates the conditions that were responsible for turning them and many of their political opponents into angry, aggressive combatants.  It does nothing to change the conditions in this country that breed hatred, violence, and polarization.

We need a radical change in the governmental policies of this country to change economic and psychological conditions.  Government has grown monolithic and uncontrollable, even bigger under the Republicans during the past six years than in the Clinton years.  And, Ron Paul is the only candidate with the courage to attempt such change.  The monetary system is not only destroying the poor and middle class economically, but it is also destroying them psychologically and emotionally as well.

I recently read an interesting article in Playboy magazine (May, 2007) by Mark Ames, the author of Going Postal, a book about the rash of workplace massacres that began in the mid-1980s.  Yes, I do read it for the articles! (GRIN.)  Ames pointed out that "workplace shootings aren't nuts at all.  They're logical!" 

The killings started in post offices, and "by the time that Congress started figuring out what was wrong with the USPS, workplace shootings had jumped from post offices to the wider private sector."

Profiling killers turned up zilch, nada, nothing.  Ames pointed out that "The murderers aren't the ones who should be profiled....Instead, workplaces need profiling."

The well-being of the American worker has deteriorated immensely as the Federal Reserve continues to inflate the currency, and in so doing, to impose a hidden tax on the poor and middle class workers, who have to work longer hours for less buying power.  Thus, they become subject to dehumanizing control, i.e., they have become more and more slaves to corporate America.

Meanwhile, back at Townhall and the discussion of hardcore "townies," I would say that, short of being hit with a lightning bolt that rewires some brain circuitry, I don't see them as changing.   Softcore "Townies," on the other hand are individuals like a fellow whose user name is NoLongerNeoCon'd, and who wrote several early comments to my blog.  Look for his initial comment to my first blog entry, "Green Eggs and Townhall Ham." He signed his comment with the name, Ryan.   You will find it at the following link.  Scroll down through the comments.

http://tinyurl.com/2gzxwd

Ryan reported that he woke up one  day and took an honest look at what he had been believing uncritically.  He said that he finally realized that he was being intellectually dishonest. And, he suggested that there are many others here on Townhall, who have been deceived for years, just like he was.  He stated:

"People who are 'neo-cons' aren't bad people, they aren't warmongers. They are people like me, who just have not been honest with themselves and spent time taking a critical look at history."

The Ron Paul Freedom Movement is comprised of people like Ryan, as well as many others from all walks of life and all political persuasions, who are coming together en masse "to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing” them, we are acting to “end them."  What are these arms?  They are political arms, intellectual arms, and humanistic arms that derive their impact from truth and principle.

Will we succeed?  Only the tide will tell....and that tide is causing the ranks of the Republican Party to swell with the classical liberal philosophy of Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson.  It is no wonder that Judge Andrew Napolitano has called Congressman Ron Paul, "The Thomas Jefferson of Our Day."  Judge Napolitano is Senior Judicial Analyst for Fox News since 1998, and earlier in his career, he became the youngest, life-tenured Superior Court Judge in the history of the State of New Jersey.

Check out the following video link to hear what Judge Napolitano has to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QwTKKSvR8

His tribute to Ron Paul begins at 2:30 (minutes, seconds) into the video.