Comments Elsewhere

Constant: I have never said, “if you want to know what a libertarian is, look at Ron Paul”. Do people do that? I guess if people do that, then that’s probably a mistake if they don’t agree with his whole platform. But do people really do that?

I don’t know whether anyone’s done that, but a lot of people have given money to the campaign, or put up signs and banners (“Ron Paul 2008,” “Ron Paul Revolution,” “Google Ron Paul,” etc.), or made personal endorsements of Ron Paul’s campaign, all of which they’ve justified on the grounds that Ron Paul’s campaign literature, debate answers, etc. promote libertarian ideals, and so getting more attention for his campaign will, in turn, educate more people about libertarianism and perhaps persuade more people to embrace it.

Presumably that’s only a good argument to the extent that Paul’s campaign actually is promoting libertarian ideals. If the money, for example, goes to produce nasty nativist-statist propaganda rather than propaganda that actually promotes libertarianism, then the money may be going towards promoting Ron Paul, but it’s not going towards promoting, or educating people about, libertarianism.