A reluctant Valentine to Ron Paul and supporters

Dear Reader,

Today I received an email from an old friend who stuck by me when I announced my support for Ron Paul in last year's presidential race, when a lot of our mutual friends derided Paul supporters as whackos, racists, or pinko pacifists, depending on which partisan school of corruption they were educated in. He included a post he had put up on a Ron Pual site about his analysis of Republican chances going forward, whether or not Dr. Paul runs again for President. My friend doesn't know that I've given up on the concept of minimal states kept small by constitutions, let alone political parties and representative government. This is a problem anarchists run into all the time; we don't wish to offend those who are fighting the good fight for minarchism, we just don't believe that it can work.

Here's my reply:

Not sure how to answer this. I love Ron Paul and would be proud to have him, or anyone like him, as President. But the truth is I gave up on democracy and the American electoral process several years ago. I supported Dr. Paul and donated lots of money to him last year, but it was all in the hope of educating the masses.

I do like [Bobby] Jindal and [Sarah] Palin and the governor of SC (or is it NC?), they're definitely better than most. But that ain't saying much. Baltimore's own H.L. Mencken said it best - "an election is like an advanced auction on stolen goods", where the bidders are the special interests that control both major parties. I had high hopes when the GOP finally wrested control from the Democrats in 2000-2004, but they turned out to be big government crooks every bit as reprehensible as the Democrats, not the limited government heroes they pretended to be. When the final history is written, they will share the burden of guilt as the destroyers of America. Ron Paul was the shining exception.

In my view, the ultimate solution, if you believe in freedom and justice, is to have no government at all, except for the government that should be universal: self-government. Everyone free, so long as they don't impinge on the freedoms of anyone else, and as long as they take responsibility for their own actions. This is the definition of civilization; government is what you get when civilization fails.

That's a simple explanation of my political philosophy, anyway.

Personally, I hope that Ron, or perhaps his son, Rand, or some other honest man or woman continues to carry the banner of Constitutionally-limited government. I would love to see a return to the breathtaking freedom that the early Americans enjoyed - minus the slavery and second-class citizenship for women, Indians, and other groups, of course. If nothing else, it gives my heart joy to see Dr. Paul speaking truth to power when he confronts the Treasury secretary or the Federal Reserve chairman about economic policy. In his speeches and letters he gives every lover of liberty the intellectual ammunition to fight the steady encroachment on our freedoms. That's far more than any other contemporary politician gives us.

Thank you, Dr. Paul, and all the best to Carol and your extended family. And thank you, too, to all the people who rallied to the cause in this last election. You are the heroes of the 2nd American Revolution, the one that will eventually lead to the dismantling of the statist tyranny.