And I believe that he should have at least made more effort to spread a message everyone could agree with.

In my opinion the “r3VOLution” is over. Even if he speaks at the GOP Convention it will be of little gain as virtually the whole Party and the Media have forgotten he existed.

It is absolutely obvious that McCain will be the GOP candidate, Ron Paul has no chance with the GOP Convention. He needs to separate himself from the Sheep and create his own flock and grow that flock with a message other than standard GOP Xenophobia.

If our love of liberty is so slim that it may be swayed by rumors, than shame on us. If we are willing to turn so quickly on a great champion of liberty such as Dr. Ron Paul, may God forgive us.

Rich Beecher
An Extremely Radical Whig in Chattanooga

To all of you: may others never turn on you as fast as you turned on the Great Doctor.

I too have sent contributions to Paul and have been greatly disappointed in his lackluster ad campaign. He needs to make a stronger case for the immorality of this ghastly war, stress the 1+ million civilian casualties, and the necessity of complete, immediate withdrawal.

I’ve also heard nothing about open borders.

The idea of self-ownership and the nonaggression axiom are the KEY core concepts upon which the entire premise of libertarian philosophy is built. Ignoring or diluting this philosophy puts us at great peril.

I prefer to admit I am on the shoulders of (earlier) giants rather than to be a loud dwarf trying to see far from the ground.

The Self-ownership/Non-aggression nonsense is all you know at least to the point of parroting it and any heretic – and I don’t use those words lightly – must be burned at the stake. Even Ron Paul and any supporter that deviates from the Rothbardian line.

“We’re Rothbardians! We’re more moral than you! We’re smarter than you! We’re better than you! We don’t even have to defend our ideas from people because anyone who doesn’t immediately recognize them as obviously good is stupid!”

I’ve been watching and waiting for either the Libertarian party, the Randites or whomever at Reason, the compromisers at Cato, or the Rothbardians to accomplish ANYTHING for roughly the same period Ron Paul has been in office. Ron Paul managed to do something I didn’t expect to see in my lifetime. Not Lew Rockwell, not Harry Browne, Not James Bovard, not Cato, not anyone obvious.

Philosophy is great, but we aren’t in Utopia. We are on planet earth. It may not be futile to educate people, but there is no division of labor if everyone is a philosopher. And people are not only rational but passionate. You must meet people where they are – and if they don’t follow you it is YOUR problem, not theirs. If you refuse to be convincing, or to present your point in a manner that they can relate to and be convinced, don’t expect to succeed.

If you hate the Ron Paul meetups, then don’t go there. Stop supporting him. You don’t seem to want actual liberty as much as feeling self-important being a promoter of a specific kind and discussing how many libertarians could through market forces dance on the head of a pin instead of the real problems. Except to say the state is evil every so often, but do nothing useful to mitigate its evils or to reduce the source.

Ron Paul is one of the few who can combine reason and passion in a constructive way. I’ve failed in my attempt here as it is clear – and I should know better than to respond to a flame with another.

But I don’t retract anything I’ve said. You’ve complained about my passion, yet I’ve made many points. I’ve often tried to have online discussions with whatever you call yourselves (anarchists, libertarians, rothbardians, whatever), and I rarely get a reasoned response. Somehow I should just know and parrot Rothbard or some other strain without challenging it.

Yes, I’ve seen Bovard has written books. I think I have at least two in my library at home. And newsletters. But how many has he sold total? How many read his columns and newsletters. Ron Paul has written books and newsletters and articles too. Compare numbers. How many votes has he gotten? How much money has he raised for his causes? My point is exactly that of what you CLAIM to support – the market and subjective value. The Rothbard brand is a flop. The Paul brand may be a fad or it may have staying power but has succeeded.

You are complaining that the market is rejecting the package of liberty you are selling. Instead of asking what works – what customers want – anything you could read in the first chapter of the Market 101 books – you keep complaining that “the people” are stupid EXACTLY like the socialist can’t ever seem to understand why there are shortages when they set a maximum price. The socialist will never admit they are wrong, but will say that the people are stupid.

Not that I expect negotiation or civil discussion here – the policy is not to negotiate with heretics, or even answer their points. be it you and me here or Ron Paul and the GOP. We are all to you just another “axis of evil”. And you are using that rhetoric. Bovard doesn’t have a problem with it.

Ought we keep the discussion civil or not? If so, then Bovards two remarks:

How can one run a “respectful” campaign when the opponent favors quasi-genocide?
At what moment did the Ron Paul campaign decide to begin pulling their punches?

are out of line. If not, on what basis or standard do you accuse me?

I will do battle on the level of reason and logic if you desire, but I find few will answer the challenge there, and this discussion began in the mud. And I can fight on that level too.

I have done so on both levels here. You can respond at either level or ignore me.

Ought we talk reason or throw insults (compare Bovard quote above)?
If reason, and if you do believe in “the market”, then at what point am I defective when I suggest packaging liberty in a form consumers will buy and cite the difference between Bovard and Paul as one might between Apple and Dell or Windows and Linux? And that complaining that no one is buying your product is futile? And that it is even worse complaining about a successful competitor. Should I complain that WalMart or Microsoft (sans implicit or explicit subsidies) are evil because of their methods even if they are successful, or should I find out how to compete better?

Which would you suggest?

Have a philosophically pure idea of liberty (if defective, as I consider pure Rothbard to be – and could be a point of discussion if I weren’t treated the same way Fundamentalists treat people who question the divinity of Christ or the Trinity), or have one that is practical and can be adopted without violence through our system of government – corrupt as it is – because someone is speaking their language at their level on their terms and will actually support?

Or even a third option – perhaps one of you bright people can package pure Rothbard without any candy-coating so it can be swallowed by the average human being so someone like him will be president in 2012. Perhaps maybe even I can swallow him, but I may be a harder case. But if you can’t convince the average person at the Ron Paul meetup who wants liberty in the first place, you won’t be able to convince people who prefer being pampered slaves to the state.

And this I find strange. I can’t talk to High-Church libertarians here or at the other mutual-admiration sites, but I can talk civilly and find large swaths of agreements with nearly everyone else – including and especially those I have severe disagreements with at Ron Paul rallies. I even find it interesting to explore their reasoning and the conversation may get a little heated but is often enjoyable for all as we attempt to understand each other. Why can I be friends with nearly a million other Ron Paul supporters, but only get insults from those who claim they want the same things?

I could not possibly give less of a shit about a speaking role at the GOP convention, where’d he’ll be regarded as respectfully and listened to as much as Richard Dawkins or Larry Flint might be. Ron Paul may be the conscience of the Republican party, but they are, as a group, about as conscientious as drunken sailors during Fleet Week. Despite all their religious pretensions, they are all about one thing, Nationalism at any cost. It is idolatry, immoral and anti-Christian (not that I care, being an atheist, but it proves they are liars through and through). The worship of the state, the bloody, rapacious, all consuming state, above all else. If the Ron Paul campaign teaches us anything, it is that principled resistance within the system is utterly useless. Ask the thousands and thousands of veterans’ families who have buried their sons and daughters, their fathers and mothers, not from combat, but SUICIDE! These veterans can’t live with themselves, and their “leaders” don’t care and wont help them. A recent Rolling Stone cartoon nailed it: “When the enemy commits suicide, they’re in the middle of a crowd. When our kids do it, they’re totally alone.” The Bush/McCain GOP gives not one fucking slimy shit for the lives of the Americans they cast into the mouth of Moloch in pursuit of their fevered visions of world wide empire, nor for the money they steal from you and me, money we earn in exchange for our precious lives, time and effort we can never recover, and they see fit to dispose of it merely to line the pockets of their corporate cronies.

Ron Paul’s words will surely fall on deaf ears at the convention, and that was not what I gave my hard-earned dollars to him to do. He’ll be pissing in the wind. Shouting into a maelstrom. Boinking the dog on company time. Ron Paul is a wanker. A wanker I respect and admire for his convictions and his integrity, but a wanker nonetheless for wasting a lot of hopeful people’s time and money. He had tremendous financial resources, a HUGE and fanatical base of volunteers ready to go balls to the wall for him, and he just diddled it away as if he wee running for county dogcatcher.

THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS is over 30 Badnariks and Brownes, and the last chance we had of effecting change via the political system. Now the likes of Barr and Gravel are calling themselves “Libertarians.”

Join the FSP. Get off the grid. Leave the country. Just don’t get fooled again by politics.

And BTW – Bovard is of the highest caliber and integrity, a writer of unassailable character. Do not cast aspersions on him just because he is asking questions and bringing to light things that need to be examined and answered for by Ron Paul, his campaign and the liberty movement.