Tom and Lew: The reason the establishment voices have been stripping their gears over Ron Paul and libertarianism in general is because they have discovered that this anti-statist phenomenon is not going to go away soon. It was easy, a few decades ago, for the statists to tolerate dissenting opinions about even the most sacred of their bovines, for it tended to demonstrate the "tolerance" they had for alternative viewpoints, . . . but only if such opinions posed no "clear and present danger" to the foundations of their fiefdom. I suspect that we may be in the midst of a shift back to "classic liberalism," whose decentralizing transformations are beyond the grasp of journalism school scribblers, and contrary to the power-interests of their statist masters.
One thing you will notice - be it in print or voice - no intellectually persuasive responses will be made to any of Ron Paul's positions: he must be marginalized as a "kook," or "racist," or even - as one declared - a "violent antiwar" critic (whatever may be meant by that self-contradictory phrase). Name-calling - in its varied forms - becomes the default mode for those challenged by ideas. Members of the mainstream media exhibit their intellectual bankruptcy whenever they write or speak of Paul's campaign and, in the end, are able to do little more than substitute a cutesy giggle or smirk where thoughtful minds would pursue an intelligent inquiry.
