Thank you for this excellent post. I say that not just because you make use of my favorite Edmund Burke quote, but also because this is something very important that needs to be said, and needs to be remembered at all times when people start talking about institutions of power like prisons and psychiatric “hospitals.”

For what it’s worth, on the Burke quote, the “against all three” bit sounds funny because 2/3 of the antecedent is lost in the sections that are clipped out of the excerpt. The full beginning of that second paragraph is: “I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any honest Man, for the Zeal I have shewn in this Cause; for it is an honest Zeal, and in a good Cause. I have defended Natural Religion against a Confederacy of Atheists and Divines. I now plead for Natural Society against Politicians, and for Natural Reason against all three. When the World is in a fitter Temper….” The problem is that I wanted to leave the bit about pleading for Natural Reason against Politicians in, but to leave the distracting stuff about natural religion out. Hope this helps.

Burke is best known today for the rather vile conservatism and authoritarianism in his opposition to the French Revolution. But Burke’s earlier writings were much more liberal, and sometimes even radical. There is some debate over whether the Vindication of Natural Society was meant as a serious argument against government, or as a satire. See Roderick Long’s first and second posts on the Vindication for the details, if you’re interested.

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.