Dissent or Descent?

One of the local ronpaulians where I work is an interesting, and typical, I think, case study on the natural progression of the type of person who might follow Ron Paul in the first place.  To protect both the innocent and the insane, we'll just call him Dale, which works on multiple levels.

Anywho, when I first started working at my current place of employment about three years ago, I got into an argument with one of my colleagues about the obviousness of liberal media bias for the MSM.  Sadly, despite having been a Republican in the past, this individual, unbeknownst to me at the time, was already in the grip of severe, and now terminal BDS -- even to the point of having voted for Mr. Hussein-Obama in the recent primaries, and not for strategic reasons.  I'm still working to at least prevent his BDS from mutating into its McCainian sub-strain, but I digress.  In frustration and unwillingness to observe simple examples of liberal MSM bias, this individual instructed that I should talk to "Dale" to find a like-minded compatriot.

So I did.  At the time, Dale was a lot like me in outlook, if perhaps a bit more bombastic.  A supporter of George W. Bush, the war in Iraq, and the greater "war on terror" as a whole, and a long-time Republican, at least here was someone (hadn't really gotten to know Marty yet) off of whom I could bounce ideas from time to time (when I could get a word in edge-wise, as Dale can be a bit dominant in conversations). 

It was during a field exercise, which entails a small team of engineers sitting in somewhat close and confined quarters for a couple weeks, isolated from friends and families, that I began to see signs of descent in Dale.  Naturally, politics is a common topic during these outings, as there's just not much else to do besides talking during the long work days in field exercises, and men being men, we talked about things that interested us. 

Then came up the Forbidden Topic of Doom™ (so named after this field exercise, of course):  the gold standard.  I, and those with me who were not Dale, listened for hours on end about how we as a country must, must! switch back to the gold standard if we are ever to emerge from the inevitable doom of the boom-bust cycle in which we have found ourselves.  All of this from Dale, of course.  Not being economists ourselves, or graduating from I Spent Two Hours On The Internet Reading About It University like Dale did, we obviously didn't have much ammunition against him apart from pointing out his lack of credentials ("shooting the messenger", of course, never mind how the messenger's credibility can, of course, impugn the veracity of the message) and the fact that our standard of living, when taken as an entire whole, vastly outstrips that of our forebears (refuted with "But it could be so much better if only we had stayed on a gold standard!", based, presumably, on his zeros of hours of economic modeling, simulation, and forecasting).

Of course, anyone who's spent any time whatsoever with a ronpaulian instantly knows that calls for a return to the gold standard are merely the mating call of the species.  I did not know this at the time, so we enjoyed a cordial conversation about the upcoming race, myself of course touting Fred Dalton Thompson (this was May 2007, back when such a thing was merely an exciting twinkle in my eye rather than a foregone conclusion (early fall 2007) or a sad reminder of things-that-could-have-been (November 2007 and on)), another being a fan of Romney, or Giuliani, or maybe McCain -- I forget precisely, and there was Dale, talking about some guy with two first names, Ron Paul.  "Isn't he a bit of a nutjob?", I sheepishly ask, based on the few snippets I had read by that time.  "I really like what he has to say," Dale responds, and then spouts a litany of policy positions -- limited government, strict constructionist Constitutional principles, fiscal responsibility, etc.  "Well, obviously I support those, but he's anti-war, right?"  "Yeah, well, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing", says Dale, ominously. 

Separate conversation a day later:  "Have you ever heard of false-flag terrorism?", Dale asks.  "Like when somebody pretends to be somebody else to start a war?"  "Yeah, I'm watching this video by Alex Jones..."  If you don't know anything about Alex Jones, well...  let's just say he's nuttier than a squirrel's turd, and leave it at that.  Of course, Dale watches this video, about the "secret history" of government-sponsored false-flag terrorism, with a completely uncritical eye, and takes much of it as gospel truth.  You know, because it "said so on the internet!"

We return back to our hometown.  In the coming weeks, Dale is sporting a "Ron Paul, America's Only Hope" shirt, drinking from one of those obnoxious "Ron Paul REVOLution" mugs, wearing Ron Paul buttons, plastering Ron Paul's face all over his office, talking him up every chance he gets, et cetera, ad nauseam.  Cue the next field exercise a short 2 or 3 months later.  Now we're on to full-blown "Ron Paul is the Only Man Who Can Save America!", spoken with that dead-behind-the-eyes look of a true cultist.  Mutterings of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and other shadowy organizations follow.  Statements of belief mistaken for and asserted as statements of fact are made implying that only Ron Paul could muster enough votes to beat Hillary or Obama (or Edwards, at the time).  "Evidence" of his rising Intrade numbers is produced (and refuted).  The Crazy has truly set in with Dale, and Ron Paul becomes another Forbidden Topic of Doom™ at the field office (an injunction repeatedly broken, at great length, by Dale). 

This whole post was inspired by the capstone event in Dale's "evolution", witnessed by me this very morning.  In Dale's workspace, a bumper sticker.  A sticker, you ask, supporting Ron Paul's now-defunct campaign?  No, while Dale still stridently supports his man, not this time.  Rather, this was the text:  "FREE PALESTINE / END THE OCCUPATION". 

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I have sympathetic ears around here when I say that this is a truly sad and disgusting spectacle to behold.  From supporting American principles of democracy, classical liberalism, and freedom, to jumping on the Ron Paul bandwagon ostensibly in support of these very principles, to agitating for a death cult whose very charter dictates the destruction of the only genuine (albeit far from perfect) liberal democracy in its region, this describes a perfect, albeit not-yet-terminal, descent into incoherence and political fringe. 

My prediction:  before a year elapses, "Dale" will begin to express sympathy for socialist/Marxist/Maoist revolutionary groups -- you know, because if they're "against the war" then they must be worth listening to.  Lying down with dogs, waking up with fleas, and all that.  Where the terminus of this descent lay, I cannot say.  But it's frightening to behold.