[ANN][RPCD] Rand Paul Coin (Deflationary)

[randpaulcoin]

Why not just issue RPCD on the bitshares network as a user issued asset? 

Use the existing delegates, existing bitUSD/bitGold markets, etc,  instead of trying to recreate all these things.

Leverage off the infrastructure being built around bitUSD/bitGold assets already instead of replicating the effort. 

What exactly do you gain from redoing everything?  It seems like wasted resources, unnecessary complications. What am I missing?

Several reasons.

Huge cost to register an asset.

I have a desire to play with DPOS. I learn nothing interesting creating an asset. I don't even know if sharedropping to an asset is something currently supported by Bitshares.

I am not redoing everything. Quite the opposite. I am leveraging the existing code as far as I can. On the other hand I also can't do anything novel with an asset.

I want to be the first clone of Bitshares because I'm a fan of the tech.

[FandangledGizmo]

You're  going to share drop 80% on a $10 000 coin?

If I've got that wrong please ignore the following rant...

How gullible do you think people are?
You could have slowly bought up most of that coin for a few thousand dollars.
It's like an 80% sharedrop mostly to yourself.
Ron Paul is a good man, shame on you trying to use his good name for a scam.

I don't believe one could slowly buying up the coin for a few thousand dollars. I don't think anywhere near most of the coin has even been available after the price dropped to next to nothing. This also assumes there are not other persons attempting to acquire the coin.

I can assure you it is nowhere near 80% sharedrop on myself. Yes I bought some coins. I'd be foolish not to do so. Do you want to line up to pay for all the development costs? If you are willing to do so, then send me a pm.

Scam is a very harsh accusation and I have done absolutely nothing that resembles a scam in any way shape or form. I also have no intention of scam type behaviors. There are tons of altcoins with premines and questionable behavior. Premines rule the coin out for sharedropping.

Scam is a very harsh accusation. In this case calling it a scam isn't harsh enough.

If you need development funds then specify how much you want personally and how much you need for development.

Don't pretend to be share-dropping on loyal supporters of Ron Paul , it's shameless.

 @ <$5000 a few weeks ago, who knows what % you now own? You may have bought out the previous developers stake too off market for all we know.

A DPOS coin requires incredible transparency and a wide initial distribution to be successful. There's a potential pump and dump here but nothing more.

Anyway I'll leave you to it. I'm outta here. Take care.

This is beyond a scam? What planet do you come from? Apparently you've never seen actual scams. Grow up and get out of high school first.

I admitted to buying RPC coins in a truthful manner. I am not the largest shareholder. It was less than $5k market cap at some point, but it wasn't whenever I bought any nor do I believe it is truthful to say a "few weeks ago".  I've bought all the coins recently and I can assure you there were multiple people buying the coin as observed by any buy order I placed being leapfrogged by some bot.

I am not "pretending to share-drop on loyal supporters of Ron Paul".  I am share-dropping on Ron Paul Coin and I believe a lot of the long term Ron Paul supporters own the coin.

I like how you claim I should have just named a price for development ! No, I want to create a coin. I am creating a coin. Another person who whines and complains from the sidelines but does nothing themselves. I noticed when I asked if you'd back the development of a coin you just hurl more insults. Typical sense of entitlement or you have a competitor of some sort.

All coins can be a potential "pump and dump".  Every single coin.  Yes, there is that potential here. Guess what kid, that potential is there for every coin.

Glad you've left as you're nothing but negative and not even bothered to answer my sincere question on how you'd sharedrop to the Liberty movement?

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Hmm... Your right. A blatant scam is a serious accusation & a harsh judgement cast on someone I don't know. I apologise.

If your intentions are good and you've only bought up a healthy stake to incentivise you and help with development and you were genuinely interested in sharedropping to Ron Paul supporters, I'm sorry.
With DPOS you will struggle imo though because in practice it currently takes very little stake to control the coin (<20%) and using your current model, it will be hard to convince people that you couldn't control a much bigger percentage.

Regards your sincere question about share dropping on the libertarian movement. The alt-coin demographic is predominantly libertarian. Perhaps a short AGS style fundraiser with your Rand Paul message for part of the distribution would result in a wider initial distribution of libertarian supporters. The BTC raised could partly be used to kick start your BitAssets, perhaps a BitGold &/or Silver from which shareholders could fund development and perhaps donate to libertarian related initiatives via their delegates.

As for being involved in a competitor I own shares in BitShares and I may consider buying some PTS if it converts to DPOS too.

I still leave you to it. Just wanted to apologise for judging someone so harshly I don't know. If your intentions are good, good luck. Take care.

[jshow5555]

You're  going to share drop 80% on a $10 000 coin?

If I've got that wrong please ignore the following rant...

How gullible do you think people are?
You could have slowly bought up most of that coin for a few thousand dollars.
It's like an 80% sharedrop mostly to yourself.
Ron Paul is a good man, shame on you trying to use his good name for a scam.

I don't believe one could slowly buying up the coin for a few thousand dollars. I don't think anywhere near most of the coin has even been available after the price dropped to next to nothing. This also assumes there are not other persons attempting to acquire the coin.

I can assure you it is nowhere near 80% sharedrop on myself. Yes I bought some coins. I'd be foolish not to do so. Do you want to line up to pay for all the development costs? If you are willing to do so, then send me a pm.

Scam is a very harsh accusation and I have done absolutely nothing that resembles a scam in any way shape or form. I also have no intention of scam type behaviors. There are tons of altcoins with premines and questionable behavior. Premines rule the coin out for sharedropping.

Scam is a very harsh accusation. In this case calling it a scam isn't harsh enough.

If you need development funds then specify how much you want personally and how much you need for development.

Don't pretend to be share-dropping on loyal supporters of Ron Paul , it's shameless.

 @ <$5000 a few weeks ago, who knows what % you now own? You may have bought out the previous developers stake too off market for all we know.

A DPOS coin requires incredible transparency and a wide initial distribution to be successful. There's a potential pump and dump here but nothing more.

Anyway I'll leave you to it. I'm outta here. Take care.

This is beyond a scam? What planet do you come from? Apparently you've never seen actual scams. Grow up and get out of high school first.

I admitted to buying RPC coins in a truthful manner. I am not the largest shareholder. It was less than $5k market cap at some point, but it wasn't whenever I bought any nor do I believe it is truthful to say a "few weeks ago".  I've bought all the coins recently and I can assure you there were multiple people buying the coin as observed by any buy order I placed being leapfrogged by some bot.

I am not "pretending to share-drop on loyal supporters of Ron Paul".  I am share-dropping on Ron Paul Coin and I believe a lot of the long term Ron Paul supporters own the coin.

I like how you claim I should have just named a price for development ! No, I want to create a coin. I am creating a coin. Another person who whines and complains from the sidelines but does nothing themselves. I noticed when I asked if you'd back the development of a coin you just hurl more insults. Typical sense of entitlement or you have a competitor of some sort.

All coins can be a potential "pump and dump".  Every single coin.  Yes, there is that potential here. Guess what kid, that potential is there for every coin.

Glad you've left as you're nothing but negative and not even bothered to answer my sincere question on how you'd sharedrop to the Liberty movement?

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Hmm... Your right. A blatant scam is a serious accusation & a harsh judgement cast on someone I don't know. I apologise.

If your intentions are good and you've only bought up a healthy stake to incentivise you and help with development and you were genuinely interested in sharedropping to Ron Paul supporters, I'm sorry.
With DPOS you will struggle imo though because in practice it currently takes very little stake to control the coin (<20%) and using your current model, it will be hard to convince people that you couldn't control a much bigger percentage.

Regards your sincere question about share dropping on the libertarian movement. The alt-coin demographic is predominantly libertarian. Perhaps a short AGS style fundraiser with your Rand Paul message for part of the distribution would result in a wider initial distribution of libertarian supporters. The BTC raised could partly be used to kick start your BitAssets, perhaps a BitGold &/or Silver from which shareholders could fund development and perhaps donate to libertarian related initiatives via their delegates.

As for being involved in a competitor I own shares in BitShares and I may consider buying some PTS if it converts to DPOS too.

I still leave you to it. Just wanted to apologise for judging someone so harshly I don't know. If your intentions are good, good luck. Take care.

I man cannot ever know.
... That is my take. I would have thought that you, of all people, would have love a DPOS coin with no inflation...maybe I have a case of a wrong identity or an old man's brain...
Interesting conversation never the less.

[FandangledGizmo]

I man cannot ever know.
... That is my take. I would have thought that you, of all people, would have love a DPOS coin with no inflation...maybe I have a case of a wrong identity or an old man's brain...
Interesting conversation never the less.

Right guy I was excited by this when I saw it, but when I realised the potential for over-centralisation of voting stake here, I lost my shit a bit unfairly with the guy.

[randpaulcoin]

It is all fair. I was taken back a bit by the outright hostility and responded in kind. All the criticisms are at least somewhat fair even if I think the wording was far too harsh.

Understand that it is hard to get a coin on an exchange from anything I read and see. It will be even harder to get a DPOS coin widely accepted. It may take paying an exchange directly for their cost to support the coin. I don't know. I see this as part of my job.


UPDATE

So we're going to go with a BTS fork since BTSX will be dead here in a few weeks. Apparently the release candidate is going to be available next week. It makes no sense to fork BTSX since it might force a later snapshot or cause unknown problems. At that point I plan on starting to put up a test-net. I also need to create an account on bitsharestalk.org to aid in creation of the test-net by utilizing bitsharestalk users who are interested.

[biophil]

Understand that it is hard to get a coin on an exchange from anything I read and see. It will be even harder to get a DPOS coin widely accepted. It may take paying an exchange directly for their cost to support the coin. I don't know. I see this as part of my job.

Since Bter was an early supporter of BTSX, it shouldn't be difficult for them to support it. I'd also look into Poloniex. They also have supported BTSX (though people have had lots of trouble with withdrawals), and they have a long history of adding brand new little coins.

[FandangledGizmo]

I believe you'll have a much greater chance of success and make more money with a smaller share-drop to RPC. A 40% RPC drop is probably the max you can go imo.

If your options are limited I'd give a larger allocation to PTS. I don't own any but it's widely distributed, POW and they understand DPOS and many like the idea of a hard cap. (So you address some of the distribution problem and bring in a bigger active base of support.)

Have you considered working with the people looking to convert PTS to a DPOS hard cap? http://pts.cubeconnex.com/index.php?topic=13.15  however the problem with that is I3 who are probably the biggest holders of PTS are more in favour of inflation/dilution as demonstrated by BTS. So a joint effort for a new coin would have the effect of reducing the concerns PTS has of a large I3 stake and address the major issue a large sharedrop to a coin with such a low cap as RPC has, which is that it could be very poorly distributed.

Other

RandPaulCoin is potentially quite limiting for a coin that could have global longer term appeal. Libertarian ideas are popular worldwide. A 'Libertarian Coin' (or something more catchy) could embrace all the popular people that represent those ideals & individual freedom all the way back to some of the founding fathers and maybe have all the most popular featured on the face of the coin. Just thinking out loud here.

Edit: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11049.msg146759#msg146759 I see you're thinking of possibly naming it after Ron Paul too instead. I think that's a good idea.

[btstv]

Greetings from the BitShares community.

We salute you friends.

We have anxiously been awaiting the arrival of the first BitShares clone, and we want to support you every step of the way.  The more success you have, the more success we will have as well.

Distributing the shares to the hardcore Ron Paul supporters is a great way to promote democratic (DPOS voting based) concurrencies to the active Libertarian community.

You will no doubt achieve synergistic benefits in this regard.

You will be teaching crypto to activists, and political activism to crypto buffs.   

The best part about DPOS is that coin owners get to vote on who runs their blockchain, and the miners/delegates who are democratically elected to run your blockchain have to compete for the privilege of being a miner/delegate by offering services, like:

1. getting your coin on an exchange
2. providing specialized apps
3. burning a certain percentage of transactions to increase the deflationary effect
4. dev functions/marketing etc.

You are basically offering 13 good paying jobs in a high-tech field, that cost the tax payers nothing.  What politician (Rand included) would not be proud of that fact. 

As long as you allow the structure of the voting which is going to be launched soon, then Rand Raul Coin will be the first ever deflationary cryptocurrency democratically controlled by its shareholders.

And best of all, it comes at a time when the BitShares community is at an actual fork in the road:

To dilute or not to dilute the total amount of shares has just cost the BitShares community $20 million in market cap because the pro-deflationary DPOS crowd just sold their shares and went looking for Rand Paul Coin.  They were just talking about forking Bitshares and running a deflationary model like you are doing, however, they did not think to lower the total amount of delegates allowed to keep them profitable.  it seems that you have an accurate grasp of this concept. 

In other words, there is a demand for a deflationary DPOS that you no doubt have realized.  I'm just rather proud of the pro-Libertarian method of distribution you chose to take.

This will no doubt get people like Max Keiser interested because he follows Protoshares, MaxCoin, among others.

Obviously BTER would be your first target for exchange adoption.


If you are truly prepared to proceed with this adventure, then you will indeed be greeted with success.

The first fork of BitShares DPOS was inevitable, congratulations on recognising the political power of this application.

I'll help answering any general questions about DPOS.  I'm not a dev, but I'm well informed.  I will post some informational links for your community.

Best of luck.

[CryptoClub]

"70% distributed to RPC
20% to BTS (required for full BitShare community support because they have historically supported every coin which has honored this percentage) which would be 10%PTS (original DPOS supporters through mining), and 10%AGS (original DPOS supporters through investing).
10% BTC (the Bitcoin connection will guarantee quicker adoption of your coin because Max Keiser would already be a part owner of the first ever deflationary cryptocurrency controlled by the owners, and not a central mining cartel)"

That seems a good idea.

Ron Paul > Rand Paul imho - I would ditch the Rand Paul concept and make it Ron Paul 3.0 instead, Ron Paul BTS, whatever... It would be far more popular.

Ron Paul is a legend in the Libertarian circles while Rand Paul is far more controversial. In essence, Rand Paul is a far weaker brand to go with. To be extremely practical, the greatest risk of a celebrity coin is that the celebrity screws something up and damages the brand. Which Rand Paul could easily do, high risk to use for it. Ron Paul is well known and not likely to screw anything up at this point, for people that already love and respect him anyway.

[randpaulcoin]

I'm addressing multiple posts here.

There is a lot to think about.  These are quotes from bitsharestalk

My personal viewpoint on silk road aside, since you are asking for feedback and questions.
1) Can you explain how delegates will be funding Rand's Campaign?  
2) How could primarily libertarian initiatives be funded along side this?  
3) Do you see any potential pitfalls to a plan for initially funding endeavors like this?
4) Would doing so put YOU in danger?

1 - This will be a later stage modification after BTS has a matured voting system. My hope is that the voting system will allow us to pay BTC private key holders with  RPC funds.

2 - If the voting system is adequate then it could be made so that a small amount of the transactions are burned to keep it deflationary while at the same time giving a certain percentage to elected recipients who have published a BTC address. Hopefully this is a fairly straightforward change but it means we will actually need a fork from standard BTS.  With a small change the fork can be relatively easily maintained.

3 - Depends on the plan?

4 - I don't feel I am doing anything wrong but it is impossible to know every law in every jurisdiction. This is why it is easier to do the whole thing anonymously.

I really am considering rebranding. I picked Randal Paul because he is the closest thing Americans have to Ron Paul.

I am also considering sharedropping to BTC. 10 AGS, 10 PTS, 20 BTC and 50 RPC ?  I am unsure about the remaining 10%.

I could see
15 AGS 15 PTS 20 BTC 50 RPC - Giving too much to Bitshares is not good for widespread adoption
10 AGS 10 PTS 10 DOGE 20 BTC 50 RPC - Doge is one of the most active crypto-communities by my observation. They deserve a tip.
10 AGS 10 PTS 30 BTC 50 RPC - No real problems here.

The problem with sharedropping to BTC is that $100 worth of BTC is diluted to less than a cent if my calculation is correct and the marketcap actually hit 100k USD. I might see how hard it would be to find active BTC accounts under a certain amount and just include those. There are a lot of options.  I could flatten the accounts out somewhat and only choose those that are within a certain range.

The problem is now I am making somewhat arbitrary decisions. If DOGE is chosen it might be the same issues.

I would lean towards distribution #2 if I write code to scale the balances.

I suppose the idea would be to get the largest active users of coins. That can be determined by coding heuristics to some degree.

If account > X  then throwaway // too wealthy
If account < y then throwaway // too poor, not worth blockchain space
If ! (account has outgoing transaction in past 2 months) then throwaway // Not an active user.  We want velocity and real users !

So then the list of address can have the balances scaled to some degree. Smaller addresses given more at the expense of larger addresses. Having the addresses flat would not be good as people with real small balances might just go instantly sell it and they would gain too much.

This seems like wealth redistribution but thats what happens when any coin is created. I am not an ideologue so I do not believe in capital controlling everything just as much as I don't believe in government controlling everything.

It seems to me that funding the defense of Ross Ulbricht, Edward Snowden and other initiatives that will be appealing to the base that Rand is trying to reach will bring more attention to the issues that fall in line with his father's own past stances.  This would be a wonderful way to help show him there is a substantial and untapped base who is very interested in personal choice and liberty for all.  

I am a big fan of the above thinking. Apparently we have another "drug lord" facing federal charges. Regardless I am considering rebranding the coin back to Ron Paul and perhaps people will vote what addresses the donations are sent to. I could make a list of addresses initially and then people can vote with their stake. Then the coin splits out the donations by vote. A lot of this depends on how mature the voting system in BTS ends up being. I'd rather just give all the power to the holders of the coin.

Again I am not selling anything or making any promises. There is no contract and there are no guarantees. This is a personal project of mine and nothing more. I would still love to hear more feedback.

[chrisvl]

Add on the announchment algo type and launch date

[randpaulcoin]

Add on the announchment algo type and launch date

Updated.

[CryptoClub]

Talking with some other people, maybe Rand Paul could also work. Really have not been following politics, some say he will be the next president? If so, or if he even could be, that is a pretty good angle. Controversy isn't all bad either.

Whatever the case, very interesting!

[randpaulcoin]

Talking with some other people, maybe Rand Paul could also work. Really have not been following politics, some say he will be the next president? If so, or if he even could be, that is a pretty good angle. Controversy isn't all bad either.

Whatever the case, very interesting!

I've been having second thoughts. Rand Paul thinks people should be put in cages over marijuana possession with other real criminals. That is an absurdity and doesn't even seem to align with the wishes of voters. I'm starting to believe that naming the coin Ron Paul would be better and keeping the plan to help Rand stay.

Rand's people want to make out that he is cut of the same cloth as his father Ron, but it may be a situation much like the Bushs.

[btstv]

The general idea behind Rand Paul Coin is that Rand Paul will have to support the owners of the coin, not the other way around.

The coin is not designed simply to support Rand Paul.  The coin is designed to be a window into the soul of his constituents whom Rand has pledged to support as a public servant.

You are thinking of the tail wagging the dog, and we want to go back to where the dog wags its own tail.

People control their leaders, not the other way around.  This is the basic concept behind crypto as a tool for the people.  This is not a revolutionary concept, but an old fashioned Libertarian concept implemented by our founding fathers.

If you were going to rename the coin, I would go with George Washington coin.

Is there any Senator in the history of the world that has ever had his own coin? (is that not publicity?)  What if Rand becomes President?  Are there any presidents who have their own cryptocurrency?  Barak Obama had the support of the internet 1.0, but Rand will have the support of the internet 2.0!  But only if he supports our views on his voting patterns in the Senate.

Offer Rand the power derived from Satoshi, and see if he responds.  Give him a chance.  

Rand will have to change his views to match ours, because we, the people, own the coin, and Rand must now listen to us if he wants to have the power and support of the new generation!

The best part about BitShares is going to be the voting, not the asset trading.

If the coin consensus turns against him, then the people will vote him out of office.

First crypto disintermediated Western Union (Bitcoin), then WallSt (BitShares), now it's disintermediating democracies (Rand Paul Coin).

The financial applications have been done, Rand Paul coin is simply a new cryptographic method of communication between a politician and his constituents.

Let the tool (cryptography) work for the people.

If Rand Paul coin does not follow the wishes of his constituents (like saving tax dollars by releasing non-pharmaceutical drug users from prison), then Rand receives no financial support from his coin community.  To the extent that the coin could change its name.

Wouldn’t it be a great experiment and media story to see if the dog could really wag its tail once again?

Let the coin dictate the political story, not the other way around.

The general public communicates to their political representative through the cryptographic (a perfectly incorruptible political poll) tool and the politician supports the consensus of his constituents or he is ejected from office.

- USA Freedom politics in the 21st century and beyond.

- Using cryptography to honor the ideas of our founding fathers.

After this Coin, politicians once again will serve the people.

This coin is based on the Supporters of the Libertarian views of his father Ron, and if Rand wants the support of the Ron Paul supporters, then he will have to align his views with those of his father.

This coin will allow the people to take back control over their politicians, and it is the best decentralized application of bitcoin since Satoshi helped the people take back control over their human capital as it is efficiently stored as financial capital.

[CryptoClub]

Talking with some other people, maybe Rand Paul could also work. Really have not been following politics, some say he will be the next president? If so, or if he even could be, that is a pretty good angle. Controversy isn't all bad either.

Whatever the case, very interesting!

I've been having second thoughts. Rand Paul thinks people should be put in cages over marijuana possession with other real criminals. That is an absurdity and doesn't even seem to align with the wishes of voters. I'm starting to believe that naming the coin Ron Paul would be better and have have the plan to vote on Rand stay.

Rand's people want to make out that he is cut of the same cloth as his father Ron, but it may be a situation much like the Bushs.

The best thing Rand Paul has going for it, as a brand, he might be the next President. Could get free press? Ron Paul ideologically I think matches with more of us crypto people, but might not get as much attention. I instantly thought Ron Paul all the way, but thinking it over more, I can see pros and cons of each. What would Rand Paul say of a coin dedicated to him? Would news cover such an event to fill time?

[CryptoClub]

"I would go with:
50% RPC (to honor the Libertarian movement, and fruit of Ron Paul’s loins which happens to be the great Libertarian hope for the future yet still enigmatic)
30% BTC (to honor the greater community)
10% Doge (to honor active youth)
10% BTS (to honor initial tech founders)"

I like 70%-80% for RPC, but I hold some and always liked Ron Paul Coin, so obviously I like that percentage most. How would BTC snapshots work, or Dogecoin snapshots? Would that be held on Crytpsy at the time?

[FandangledGizmo]

+100 for Ron Paul if the other option is Rand Paul. It's just so limiting.

I see you've already seen the problem with a Bitcoin sharedrop (even if your coin had a $10 Million+ CAP the actual value your share drop represents to an individual owner & therefore the percent of shares claimed and interest created would be negligible.)

Don't be too worried about share dropping bigger on BTS/PTS imo if you exclude/limit  the bigger accounts after the first 10%. Their communities are intelligent, supportive & most importantly understand DPOS, many would be interested in a hard cap.  (Hint: You especially want to mention this to their Chinese community or at least on the Chinese boards here.)

Lottoshares share-dropped on Dogecoin with limited success/interest I believe, but Doge are worth considering as their low CAP would make the drop per person more meaningful. (Also Dogecoin is traded on BTC38, the main Chinese exchange at least.) You may event want to consider share-dropping on a lower CAP coin that is traded on BTC38 so that the Chinese can buy in specifically for the share drop too.

Crazy idea  - Take 5% and distribute to the most influential popular people in that area. If they don't claim it within two years it slowly gets released to their favourite charity. (The delegates can discern if claim is genuine.)

X% Ron Paul
Y% Max Keiser
Z% ??
Etc.

Other: You might want to set aside 5% of shares to be released via delegates for two years starting month 6/12. (Transaction fees are unlikely to pay for much development/maintenance early on, until the coin has a really big CAP, so it would be centralised around relying on you unless there was funding in place to maintain it for at least the first three years even if something happened to you.)

Edit: Have you looked into partnering with PTS?

New Ron Paul Coin

50% Ron Paul Coin
40-50% PTS *
0-5%   (Ron Paul, Max Keiser etc.)
0-5%  development (2-3 year initial funding released via delegates.)

* Consider reaching out to that community. They want to transform into a DPOS hard cap too, but they feel they have centralisation problems - http://pts.cubeconnex.com/index.php?topic=19.0  You could potentially bring that community and their talents on board for a 40% Share drop. It's also still traded on bter a popular Chinese Exchange.

As an owner of BTS, I'd rather PTS changed their name and focused on a independent DPOS hard cap rather than distracting from BTS.

[CLains]

(Hint: You especially want to mention this to their Chinese community or at least on the Chinese boards here.)

Those guys would literally burn their own money to reduce inflation. 

[puppies]

If your intention is to allow donations to political candidates some ideas include
Libertarian Party Fund
Libertarian Defense Fund
Liberty Defense Fund.

I think I prefer Liberty Defense Fund.  A short mission statement could be
The Liberty Defense Fund was founded with a two prong mission.  We focus on supporting liberty minded political candidates in an attempt to reign in the overreaching of our government at all levels.  We also support the defense of liberty minded individuals that find themselves within the cross-hairs of the state for engaging in behavior that all free people have a right to engage in.


I view liberty as a single monolithic thing based upon property rights, but you may want to limit the scope of the liberties you are looking to protect.

I believe that becoming a politician with the intention of changing the government from within is a futile cause.  It is akin to attempting to solve an organized crime problem, by joining the Mafia.  To gain true power in either organization you must be either truly evil, or stupid enough to be controlled by the truly evil.  The quest for power changes you, the little concessions you make to get along slowly corrupt.

The truly incredible thing about Ron was that he never allowed himself to be corrupted.  He never made that first concession that makes the next one just a little bit easier.  It reminds me of an old story.  A man living amongst wicked people went out into the street in an attempt to get them to see the error of their ways.  He preached and preached.  He was jeered and derided.  When he was listened to at all he was laughed at.  Yet day after day year after year he continued his attempt to rally his fellow man.  One day a young man asked this now old man "Why do you even try old man?  Isn't it clear that you will never change us?"  The old man responded "yes.  That is clear. But as long as I keep trying, at least you haven't changed me."

To be honest, I don't think Ron changed the government at all while in office.  The machine rumbled on past this old man waving his arms, and trying to tell people that this might not be such a good idea.  He woke up a lot of people to the ideas of liberty to be sure, but the machine rumbles on. 

Any one that is truly dangerous to the status quo will not be allowed to compete for the white house.  I would love to believe that Rand is faking his statist beliefs so that he can get into office and then do exactly what his father would have done.  Begin a systematic dismantling of the welfare/warfare state.  Even if that is the case, it won't work.  He would be framed and impeached or assassinated.  Just like the last two presidents that became a threat while in office.