Ron Paul Is No Friend of Human or Civil Rights

David Niewert, of the blog Orcinus deserves a medal for doing the research. THIS SHOULD GIVE ANYONE PLENTY OF AMMO with which to ward off even the most avid Paulites (who have grown both more numerous and more luminous with righteousness). Since Paul's media-savvy fund-raser last week, he's been accorded a patina of legitimacy he does not deserve. Plus, he provides cover behind which the radical fringe of his ideology conceal their ancient racist bigotries.

Libertarianism is a phenomenon explicable only by an undeveloped, uncritical intellect such as that typically possessed by teenagers: rationalizing, and attempting to legitimize the childish selfishness of which advancing adulthood will soon enough deprive them. Nobody over the age of 25 can take it even remotely seriously. It's the 20th Century equivalent of Hobbes' war of all against all:

Praefatio (preface), section 14: "Ostendo primo conditionem hominum extra societatem civilem (quam conditionem appellare liceat statum naturae) aliam non esse quam bellum omnium contra omnes; atque in eo bello jus esse omnibus in omnia."

(I show in the first place that the state of men without civil society (which state may be called the state of nature) is nothing but a war of all against all; and that in that war, all have a right to all things.)

Libertarianism is a public relations stunt designed to put a fresh coat of lipstick on the pig called 'social Darwinism.'