Have you ever dealt with a Paultard and thought out loud, "You seriously can't believe that argument, can you?" Well, after thinking about this matter for a while, and having dealt with numerous Paultards, I have come to a new realization.
Maybe they don't.
The basis for this story comes from Sultan Knish, who reports on a ronpaulforums poster named DaronWestbrooke. The story, told only through screenshots, reveals an eye opening looking inside the mind of a Paultard. Daron Westbrooke starts off by freaking out over the recent TNR revelation, unsure of how he can continue defending the man. Eventually, Daron becomes corrupted by the forces of evil, gradually shedding more and more of his integrity, until he is nothing more than a hollow puppet for Ron Paul. It's something that all of us have have about Paultards, but something we've never been able to confirm it.
Until now.
Daron's postings to ronpaulforums.com seem to be legitimate, and a quick search via google cache shows that they were hosted on that site at one time. Unfortunately, the thread now requires a password in order to access. This is not standard before for those forums, and is usually only reserved for "special threads" that they would prefer to keep from the public.
There's too much to retype, and the graphics are too large to be posted here. So here is the cliff notes version, along with links:
(1) Daron is freaking out over the latest story. The smoking gun seems to be Ron Paul's signature, and his use of personal information. He needs some talking points, stat. (7) He's starting to feel sick. (14) His room mates are now yelling at him, because it turns out that the man who Daron has been shilling for the past several months is actually a massive racist. He decides to go out for drinks.
(20) Daron begins to realize that the new writings completely blow the old excuses out of the water, and is frustrated from the fact that the excuses keep changing. In a state of drunken brilliance, when the inhibitions go away, he comes to the revelation that all he does these days is make more and more excuses for Ron Paul. Is Daron growing a backbone? (36) He even begins to wonder if he's been "played."
(48) But then Daron begins to sober up, and the natural conspiracy instinct kicks in. He is a Paultard, after all. Bush manufactured a war, god dammit, and he could manufacturer this too! "No oneder the campaign didn't respond about these scanned copies, because they didn't exist, they were created." (60) Even his fellow Paultards express skepticism, but Daron holds steadfast. (81) Daron Westbrooke refuses to surrender!
(109) Eventually, someone suggests that they argue that the signatures were faked, and since this was the smoking gun, Daron decides to go along with it. (193) If they can argue that TNR faked those newsletters, than everything will go away. (196) There's no evidence for this, but that doesn't matter: "All we got now is the signatures, but the point is to repeat it over and over. we can make that thought reality."
(203) Of course, even Daron doesn't seem to believe that the signatures were forged. But they're out of options, and this seems to be the best approach. (4) Someone else points out that no one outside of the Paultard community will believe this, but Daron won't budge his ground.
And, just like that, despite a brief stint of drunken lucidy, Daron returns to his rightful role as puppet. This is both hilarious and frightening at the same time. I remember once seeing a Dateline Segment on pyramid schemes, where all of the victims refused to admit that it was a scam. Why? Because they had invested so much into it already, that they couldn't abandon it now. They were still holding onto hope that maybe, just maybe, everything would pay out, if they could keep the game moving a little longer.
Daron has gotten to a point where he has invested so much of himself into the Ron Paul campaign that it is impossible to tell where Daron ends, and the campaign begins. He can't abandon ship, without abandoning his sense of self. Like the tragic hero, Daron is a young and useful revolutionary who starts off believing that he's doing the rights thing, but during his quest, he eventually learns to sell his soul piece by piece, until there's nothing left. He doesn't cling to the "These signatures were forged!" excuse because it will convince people. He doesn't even cling to it because he believes in it himself. He clings to it because he needs justification, any justification, so that he can convince himself that he is still doing the right thing, and that all his sacrifices up until now were worth it. What's that saying about staring into the abyss?
The only diffference between Daron and most other Paultards is the fact that Daron was a little more drunk than most, and a little more uninhibited when it came to revealing their methods. "The point is to repeat it over and over. we can make that thought reality." That's what happened with the "ghostwriter was fired meme" and the "newsletter were already debunked" meme. We already already knew that they were bullshit, of course, but up until now, we had no concrete evidence that the Paultards didn't actually believe it either.
The signature meme didn't didn't last very long, in large part, because even their own membership called BS on it. But that didn't stop them from trying. The next meme became "But Ron Paul has black friends!" For instance, there's been a photo going around of Ron Paul in the 60's, standing next to an elderly black woman and two black men (seen here and here.). Of course, that argument was a bit too vague, and was quickly abandoned it. So then they moved onto their next meme argued that Kirchick was neocon.. Long story short, it might be true, but it doesn't do anything to refute the evidence. More importantly, it doesn't work very at all on republicans.
The latest meme now involved "NAACP says Ron Paul isn't racist!" This was already addressed on Kos, as well as on my own personal blog. This one has caught on like wildfire and seems to be the one they'll stick with, as I've seen it spammed multiple times on most of the liberal blogs that I've visit. It looks like the Paultards realized that they weren't getting anywhere by saying that Ron Paul denies the story, so this time they went to the infinitely more convincing meme of, "Oh yeah? Well this time, a black man denies the story!" Nelson Linder, head of the Austin Chapter, rehashes the 1996 defense that Ron Paul was somehow quoted out of context. Anyway, you can trust Nelson Linder on this matter, because he's black. (No, you can't trust any other black people -- they don't count.).
The Paultards are claiming that the Linder story is the final nail on the coffin, but I don't think they're going to convince anyone with it. The real question is, do they that they'll convince anyone with it? Does it even matter to them anymore? I'm not sure. It seems like they're transitioning to true cult status. Where it isn't about winning new converts, but maintaining the loytalty of the already converted. Of course, that doesn't stop them from spamming.
Conclusion:
We all know that Ron Paul won't win the next election, and I think that they're starting to realize that as well. I see two possible paths for the Paultards. They can either go the way of Ross Perot, where they accept that their candidate lost and move on, or they can go the way of Lyndon LaRouche, where they continue to harass you on the street corner while asking you to donate to their campaign. Which one will it be?