I consider Ron Paul to be a true Liberterian. It's too bad that in our two horse representative republic he has to run as a Republican just to have the means to compete. So how does Ron garner support from both liberals and conservatives? His message is consistent and he practices what he preaches: get government out of the way. This message appeals to conservatives who believe in free markets, limited government and lower taxes. The limited government argument also appeals to liberals because there are two other worse options: Democrats with good intentions but bad spending habits and the propensity to "parent" us and the fake tyranny of mainstream Republicans who only believe in different government not smaller government.
Libertarian and Liberal both come from the Latin root liber meaning free (as in liberty). Libertarians believe in a freedom where they can make their own choices and liberals believe in freedom through a government that provides safety nets and a counterbalance to capitalism gone wild.
I believe that government does have a role to play and I would rather have a government that's on my side (not wealthy enough to buy my own puppet) than no government at all, but every year that our debt rises, I pull a little closer to the limited government tent. Ron Paul is right that Republicans pretend they want limited government. What they really want is a government who lines the coffers of business, limits the choices and role of women and robs money from social services to play chess games around the world. Liberals and conservatives both have different ideas of what bad government is and given the choice between bad government and no government, we choose the latter.
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