Kelly McRae
weeYoke
Behind that frank stare lurks a cohesion genius, an indispensable, nigh invisible, enabler of liberty…
(and the camera may add ten pounds but this artist just added ten kilos to Mr. Harding. It’s a shading, blending talent which is beyond me. In order to portray his thinner face, I drafted a result many would label a zebra ;) Mr. Harding is thinner than this enhanced tracing. I had a choice, zebra of shading from incompetent drawer, or healthy handsome man. I hope he forgives me)
How can one human being process and share that much ideal information, to that many thousands of Paulites, in a timely fashion? If it weren’t for Eric Harding there mightn’t be knowledge of Ben Swann, or other familiar faces of liberty. Without the unsung heros who built the platform to enable the sharing of faces, nuances of ideas, memes and history lessons, the liberty movement could not have spread.You would not be reading this article if it weren’t for Eric Harding; not because his name is in the title, and not because he is powerful and dashing. (although he is, and earnest, too) You are reading this because he enabled you to many months ago. It’s eerie, I know. What is he doing in my news feed? And how has he found such superior information? I was grateful, a bit jealous, and eventually, a little suspicious.
Thank goodness, though, that’s just how his brain works. Much as we shifted our paradigm from the hardware of a pc, to Facebook and cloud computing, a new soft network must be born with each new cooperative manifestation. Yet it must be strong and flexible enough to handle the load. In short, Eric (and a tiny handful of others like him) are the connectivity geniuses of our modern world, our liberty’s glue. How would we have cooperated into threads of knowledge to be passed along, otherwise? Have you tried sharing without using a group? Have you ever run a group with thousands of members? What looks on the surface to be simply ‘starting up a group’ on Facebook, turns out to be hellishly more difficult in reality. Facebook wasn’t exactly writing code to help Ron Paul supporters unite. And Twitter? We don’t call it the gulag for nothing. Twitter is a freakish control nightmare algorithm designed to defeat liberty, but I nearly digress already.
Plenty of people campaigned for liberty before this year. But for the majority of us sleepy slobs, January 2012 marks a point of robust awakening, a time when Ron Paul pages on Facebook sprung up like dandelions, and Twitter accounts were suddenly awash with avitars of the good doctor’s face.
However, it would be a couple of months before us newbies would discover how particularly grassroots Paul’s campaign was. With little money and rare official units, there was no campaign communication to the grassroots. Its illegal, and we were never united via the campaign. Like independent agents running around for tidbits, we were met with silence from our leader when we most needed direction (ie, obnoxious fraud, Rand Paul endorsing Romney, etc) On the ground we could feel what to do, could feel our efforts paying off, but within the online community the stronger connections felt absent. So many of us were just screaming in the dark (and I still am). It’s not that there wasn’t plenty to do, heaps to learn, and share. It just didn’t work independently.
Eric Harding was one of the first (and the best) people to help. He built a platform for cooperation and communication that was lacking in the official campaign; and worse, lacking in the forum run websites for Dr. Paul. It felt as if money were involved, we were going to see some ugly stuff. But free platforms were well run and regulated. These are necessarily broad and biased views, but it’s important to understand the nature of cooperation. Are we working for a paycheck or our children’s future? Once a reasonable amount of money is put into play, some inflexibility to principles must be maintained, it’s the law of capitalism, of sponsorship. But Eric Harding has not sacrificed his integrity, and I’ve witnessed it challenged.
When I skyped Mr. Harding, I was a little nervous. It was not the thousands of liberty lovers he brought together, nor the courage in conflict he showed mere weeks ago, but because I hadn’t yet decided if he was a mole. Seriously. What has our state of freedom become when I develop suspicions because of success? That’s crazy talk! The tall poppy syndrome makes me want to regurgitate. No, I was wary of Eric Harding’s success because its a function of our morphed times. There were tiny, albeit powerful, nefarious elements in the Ron Paul campaign. I wanted to know if Eric Harding was one of them. How could a man in Switzerland affect so much change with no money power behind him? Without the face of the group actually in the group (RP), we were left sensing as he built a practical scaffold in the dark, and when we turned on the light, we were not sure what we’d find.
Others had brought similar questions to me after the ‘Lawyers for Ron Paul’ mess. I’m not going there. I thought about it, but you can research Gilbert on your own beginning with Angie Davidson, an incredibly brave and bright writer. Integrity may dictate I mention him, but I do not want to contact Gilbert to hear his ‘side’ of things. I don’t want that man knowing my name. Does that communicate the issue?
Under pressure and with a lot at stake, Eric chose peace, and ultimately, solidarity. He had to operate on his beliefs and solve the conflict, and he chose the same peaceful route I would have. Any misreporting or lack thereof regarding this issue rests entirely with me, because I don’t want to touch Gilbert. I was not there, and am reporting only some of what was reported to me.
At a time when others were confused or wanted to disperse, Eric quietly led on with peaceful truth.
This is how I view Eric Harding’s essence now.
Is this how an engineer’s brain works? So many faces of liberty are just that, faces. Others purport violence, or compromise in other realms. For garden variety liberty lovers we’ve been shafted, reading big alternative news and sharing it wherever we could. Eager Eric scrambled to fix all that. And now he has taken the huge success of MFTRP (etal) and is connecting the liberty movement itself… without the money power’s help. His group personally vets each admin in each state, and it’s exquisite. With an absence of active grassroots cohesion, we have been searching for a scaffold which spans for liberty, not any particular platform, not any particular person, nor party, just the very real and popular idea of peaceful liberty. Perhaps that’s why his independent force is so bright … everything about it is voluntary, and fully observed. I was astounded not just by the sheer numbers, but by the intelligence of its members.
Perhaps subconsciously, perhaps not, Eric exemplifies voluntary, peaceful, cooperative, prosperous freedom through reveal everything, regulate nothing, trade with all, alliance with none, faith in individuals, and a shield only against those who espouse evil or violence. All from an interview on Skype, I know ;)
Born the day before Christmas in Mt Vernon, New York, Eric spent much of his childhood on his grandmother’s farm in Georgia, enjoying the rural life. As an engineer, he has since settled in Switzerland with his Tibetan wife. I can’t make this stuff up. That was one of my first curiosities, how or why does a man in Switzerland work so hard for Ron Paul? And allow me to clarify, he is working for liberty, non-violent liberty. He is motivated (as so many of us are) by his grown son, currently in Florida. Eric himself doesn’t look a day over 27. But he SAYS his son is grown. I don’t even want to know how gorgeous his wife might be. But my heart melted when he dashed to close the door, so as to not awaken her when I got excited and loud. Too cute!
He exists in the ether echelons of our liberty movement, as the scaffolding, not the paint job, yet he is accessible to all. Although he has received numerous complaints about not getting back to people, I think he is simply that busy. And counterparts from other groups don’t deign to respond at all. I’ll take a man of the people who at least tries.
Final deductions from our interview …
He operates in peace.
He accepts and strengthens any tie which is liberty loving.
He provides strong yet flexible grassroots connection (even on an unfriendly platform).
He operates independently, yet fully connected.
If he senses egoic force, or fraud, any purporting of violence, in or around any peer, he not only calls what he sees, but maintains that integrity through action, voluntary action.
His curious and passionate nature led MFTRP to the apex of our reloveolution; and is now poised to do the same for liberty on a global scale. How do you build a platform for a cause which, by its very definition, is so varied? The theme is no theme, so long as it moves toward liberty through peace, I guess. ;)
MakingFriendsThroughRonPaul was/is the best of the best. And it’s newer manifestations blow my mind. It’s clear once you dig in how he achieved exponential impact in a relatively short period of time. Eric is operating (read, working his butt off) in the light of truth to have maximum impact for liberty while maintaining minimum exposure for himself. It’s a fascinating combination in today’s world, and worth taking the time to suss out.
The most free, yet the most connected… compliments of Eric Harding, liberty engineer extraordinaire.
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