And this, to me, is the saddest thing about a Paul candidacy. He's got some really strong ideas about limiting the scope and power of the government. If he'd pull his head out of the sand and take a look at the threats we're facing around the world, and realize that we CAN'T simply disengage and return to some isolationist fantasy world, I'd be a lot closer to getting behind him.
But his campaign, for whatever reasons, has really been playing up his anti-war stand at the expense of everything else. You can't convince me that moonbats marching in some "impeach Bush" protest in Berkeley while carrying Ron Paul signs really want to abolish the Department of Education? Or reform Social Security? No. They're supporting Paul because (a) he's spoken out more stridently against the war than virtually any of the Rats except maybe Kookcinich; (b) they think they can screw up the Republicans by putting his name in there; (c) it's the "cool" and "rebellious" thing to do. Pick one or more.
}:-)4
I agree 100%. What Dr. Paul’s supporters here on FR don’t seem to understand is that Paul is actually harming the cause of small government conservatism and individualism.
Because his candidacy is so intertwined with being anti-war, isolationist, Alex Jones, neo-Nazis, etc., people are going to automatically connect libertarianism and small-government conservatism with those movements as well.
Look at the two lions of individualism of the 20th century: Reagan and Goldwater. Compare both those men’s foreign policy stances with Paul’s.