Dear Diary

Okay, Jim, you have been entirely self-indulgent for too long.

Save for a few .30-30s and those pounds of  military .30-06, every case in the loading shack is full of powder and lead. The shack itself is so neatly reorganized  you'll never find what you're looking for. You've had your jollies  burnishing steel and shining stocks with walnut flavored  MinWax. You even went to Southern Archery yesterday and popped $21.35 on a string for the Ben Pearson recurve. (Highway robbery, but that's another story.)

But  in two full weeks you haven't contributed one damned thing to the Revolution, to saving the Republic  from the Republicans, the Democrats, and Heartbreak of Sorosisis.

Back to the grindstone.

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There's a new Reuters/Ipsos poll reported this morning. Mitt leads, followed by 999 Cain. But guess who's third. Guess who's ahead of Perry, Bachman, Gingrich, Santorum, and the other famous occupants of the Fox-approved neocon asylum?

Ron Paul, that's who. The crazy old doctor-coot from malarial Texas. The one who keeps yapping about the Constitution and  going on and on about the necessary and useful functions of government as opposed to wholesale vote buying financed by exorbitant taxes and currency inflation.

Yes, I understand there is as much chance of Paul occupying the White House as there is of me shooting a thousand-yard Camp Perry score of of 100- 9x, offhand with my Model 94.

That ain't the point.

It took us more than two centuries to become competitors with Greece, Ireland, and Malawi as the world's most laughable economic basket case.  No single politician, not even Paul is going to lead us out of the malaise in a term or two.

But an idea can, and  at this horrid point in the American saga, Paul is the most effective purveyer of the underlying notion of liberty and a decent shot at general  prosperity.

Send him your spare change.  Wear one of his gimme hats or tees.  Every time the subject comes up in your circles,  politely wait your turn to speak and then explain calmly and professionally why he should get more votes. I suggest this wording:

"Because he's the only one not totally full of shit."