by Doug Fuda
“I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.” — Father Brown in The Queer Feet by G. K. Chesterton.
The year 2008 was a very eventful year in my life. For the first time ever I was genuinely interested in Presidential politics due to my enthusiasm for the candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul. I registered as a Republican in Massachusetts because I wanted to vote for him in the primary. I was working with several like-minded friends and we endorsed him on our website. I marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston with an enthusiastic contingent carrying a Ron Paul banner.
Dr. Paul’s campaign uniquely and courageously emphasized two issues that had always been most important in my mind — abortion and war. He condemned abortion because it violated the right to life (as protected by the Constitution) of innocent babies and what’s more he had a practical plan for how to actually curtail it based on states’ rights. In addition Ron Paul was an anti-interventionist advocate of peace at a time when the U.S. government was hyper-interventionist and aggressively warlike.
Of course, Dr. Paul did not win the nomination, but in November 2008, for the first time in my life, I cast a vote for President by writing in his name on my ballot.
But something else happened that year which is even more significant to me, even astonishing, and the two events are connected. I decided suddenly and unexpectedly to return to the Catholic Church, after an absence of about 40 years, when I read an article on the lewrockwell.com website by a Dr. G. C. Dilsaver.
At this point some background information is necessary.