All these comments bemoaning how "crazy" and "extreme" Ron Paul is supposed to be would have gotten under my skin at one time, but now they just amuse me, The enemies of liberty finally see the long-term impact of Ron Paul's campaign on the minds and hearts of Americans and they are going into full-blown panic mode.
Unfortunately - civility and a firm grasp of logic not being most garden-variety statists' strong suit - the only tools left in their arsenal now are sophomoric shaming and social ostracism attempts using flaccid and meaningless buzzwords. "Radical!" "Crazy!" "Extreme!" is the kind of rubbish they bleat about when they can no longer find coherent justifications for their barbarically coercive models of society.
PUBLIC OPINION > A Libertarian Can Be Elected President One Day
SodaHead News
2012/05/16 22:00:00
As with his 1988 and 2008 presidential campaigns, Ron Paul was able to accumulate an enormously active and responsive following this year, but once again, he's wound up a little short. He's run as a third-party libertarian and as a Republican; he's run in good times and bad; he's remained (relatively) honest and incorruptible in the eyes of the public. Still, nothing. If he can't make it to the Oval Office, will a libertarian candidate ever have a shot? We asked the public.
The results were pretty close, but in politics, you don't need much of a margin to win. 53% is more than enough to land the presidency, even if you're Grover Cleveland. If we acted like everything that hasn't happened yet could never happen, humanity would never move forward. Will it happen? Who knows. But the point is, it could. This isn't about whether or not you'd want a libertarian president, but whether or not it would be possible to break the two-party system and elect someone outside of the box. As the Top Comment wrote, "At this point, they can only try to forestall the inevitable. A free and voluntary society is coming."
Libertarians Have Faith
Conservatives were a little more likely than liberals to trust that a libertarian president could win, but they were both unconvinced. Same goes for moderates. The only political demographics that thought it could happen were libertarians (obviously) and political "others." The real kicker was how many voters fell into those categories -- 45% combined.
Smokers Could See It Happening
One thing we've noticed in the past is a correlation between smokers and libertarian thinking. We've suggested that maybe recent proposals threatening to slap graphic warnings on packs, or jack the price of a pack up to $100, are the reason smokers are so like-minded. Here, again, smokers were much more likely than nonsmokers to believe libertarians could take the presidency.
High School Hot Spot
In his books, Ron Paul describes the overwhelming response he's gotten from college students who are frustrated with the rigid two-party political structure, but the breakdown shows that college students are no more likely than anyone else. In fact, high school students were the real supporters here. 84% of high schoolers said it's possible -- almost as much as the libertarians themselves.
If you'd like to vote on this question, dig deeper into the demographics, or engage in existing discussion about the topic, visit our poll about libertarian candidates. We'd love to hear from you!
Do not confuse libertarianism with anarchism, Anarchists want there to be no government and will often talk about a voluntary society. Most libertarians support military and police, just most libertarians think both should be under public scrutiny because everyone makes mistakes even government officials. Which most people who think libertarianism is bad blatantly disregard human interaction in government and economy.
It won't change till we stop the economic bubbles, the food bubbles, the home bubbles, the education bubbles, etc.
I guess he is just too far ahead of his time.
Although he did start social security, unemployment, and mnay entitlement programs wich would label him proggressive he would not have supported abortion, gay rights, or civil rights which would indicate him as a liberal.
Not everything he did was helpful to the people either, 40% cuts in spending on veterans' benefits – by removing 500,000 veterans and widows from the pension rolls and reducing benefits for the remainder, as well as cutting the salaries of federal employees and reducing spending on research and education
To jdemme: more than that: neither the American people nor congress were ready to declare war (that's how it was done those days - *Congress* declared war) until the U.S. was actually attacked. Also FDR making some wishful thinking type statement like "we *ought to* enter the war", or promoting it in a big way would have had the opposite effect, causing an isolationist (as they were in those days) Republican to be elected.
FDR, very early on saw America's participation in the war as inevitable and necessary. Read Larrabee's _Commander in Chief_ for the astonishingly deep and thorough ways FDR and Gen. Marshall prepared the country to enter the war as soon as the people and congress were ready to ratify it, and to swing the balance in the two largest wars in history and bring them to a close in under 4 years. Also read histories of the Revolution, War of 1812, and Civil war to see how unusual FDR's hitting the ground running was.