Red-state fascists don't want Ron any chance to gain traction, and they don't care about abortion or immigration as much as the warfare state, to which Ron is a real threat. Notice now that even belief in the Second Amendment is a taboo position in establishment conservatism. But they are losing. The good doctor has awoken the prudent, cautious, non-totalitarian wing of the right, which cheered him as loud as the brownshirts cheered the fascists on stage. Not all conservatives, it turns out, are ready to see America turn into the Soviet Union just so they can stand by their crazed president on a sinking ship. The fact that even many in the audience cheered Ron's comment on international law (the others probably ignorantly thought he meant the UN, not the great libertarian tradition of international codes of civilized behavior such as the law of neutrals and non-aggression) is heartwarming and breathtaking.
And I love how, while remaining civil, diplomatic and persuasive, Ron is far more on the attack than before. He unflinchingly called it a war of aggression, he denounced torture, he singled out the evil neocons, he decried the national security bureaucracy, he condemned war in Afghanistan and the proposed one in Iran, he called for complete non-intervention, he attacked the very foundations of the post-WWII executive imperium, and he was cheered. This was a great moment for me, a boy who thought that the entire conservative movement sold its (already sinful) soul to the devil for a mess of totalitarian pottage. It turns out that some Republicans, at least, remember the promise of a free country, that rhetoric they used to hum along to when Reagan uttered it disingenuously. But this time, it's more than song and dance – in the post-9/11 world, an antiwar Republican burst of applause is more inspirational than anything the Gipper ever delivered.
