National Review on Ron Paulism

Ramesh Ponnuru is right to notice a sea-change. Libertarianism is, as Murray Rothbard insisted, a political philosophy, period. It is not a cultural or lifestyle movement. Still less does it require an anti-religious or anti-bourgeois orientation.

One great side-effect of the Ron Paul movement is to make this clear. People of faith are welcome.

Murray, a pro-Catholic agnostic of Jewish heritage, held that libertarianism would never get anywhere politically so long as it was associated with hatred of religion, as in some of classical liberalism or modern Randianism. After all, he pointed out, the vast majority of Americans–like the vast majority of people in all societies at all times–are religious.

Come one, come all to the Ron Paul movement: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons, Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, Baha’i, Unitarians, Ethical Culture, agnostics, atheists–everyone.

There is no religious test or, more important, no anti-religious test in the Ron Paul movement. Just our political creed of personal freedom, economic freedom, sound money, tolerance, and peace.

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6:35 pm on November 25, 2007