Lew, I find this part of the article most interesting:
And, while some libertarians criticize Paul from the left on social issues, others are swiping at him from the right over the war. "Will Libertarianism Survive Ron Paul?" asked one article on the America's Future Foundation website, before continuing, "Paul's prominence threatens to make his blame-America instincts the defining characteristic of libertarianism in the public imagination. If libertarianism becomes inextricably associated with radical pacifism, will young people with classically liberal instincts be discouraged from serious political engagement?
In the long term, as far as libertarianism is concerned, this is probably the greatest thing the good Doctor's campaign has done -- it has explained to the world that libertarians are antiwar. As many LRC readers know, I have long struggled with the horrible misconception that libertarians can be prowar. It is the worst of all deviations, and Ron has done us all a great service. Now even a Neal Boortz or other liberventionist running as an LP candidate can't reverse the good he's done. Dondero laments that "now everyone in the country is going to think that all libertarians think the same way that he does." If this means every American will think libertarianism = antiwar, and that libertarianism is by definition opposed to an interventionist foreign policy, and that libertarians are among the few brave enough to speak the truth about blowback, then all I can say is I sure hope Dondero is right.
Thanks again, Ron. You have done the work of a thousand men in preserving the antiwar heritage of libertarianism. A pro-mass murder brand of classical liberalism is hardly what America, or the world, needs.
