Happy Birthday, Ron Paul

Happy Birthday, Ron Paul

By Justin Raimondo,
Antiwar.com
August 20, 2014

Ron Paul is 79 today.

Libertarians owe him a great debt, one which can never be repaid.

Without him, it’s more than likely that our movement would’ve
either gone off the rails, succumbing to opportunism of the worst
sort, or else slipped into obscurity, never to be seen or heard from
again.

Thanks to him, neither of those dreadful scenarios occurred.

What happened instead was the almost miraculous growth and
development of libertarianism into a viable national movement,
with “mainstream” media forced to sit up and take notice.

Now we are told we may be approaching the “libertarian moment”
by the New York Times, no less! — and 90 percent of the credit
(maybe more!) goes to Ron and the movement he inspired.

But it wasn’t easy.

Three presidential campaigns, one under the Libertarian Party
banner and two in the GOP primaries, with him travelling all over
the country non-stop, a heroic effort for a man of his years.

And he looks fabulous: I should only look that good at 79!

His career limns the upward trajectory of the rising libertarian
movement, spanning the years when libertarians were totally
unknown to the general public — I recall hearing, after telling
someone that I was a libertarian, “I didn’t know the librarians
had their own party!” — to our present Libertarian Moment.

Without him, we may have reached it, eventually, but surely not
as soon.

And I know many of my readers will agree with me when I say it
has come not a moment too soon.

To readers of this web site who may not be libertarians, and there
are many, what’s important about Ron and the movement he
spawned is the awareness he has brought to the public of the
dangers inherent in our interventionist foreign policy.

He has stood like a rock, even in the darkest days of the post-9/11
era, when even the staunchest peace advocates hesitated to raise
their voices and the War Party was on the march.

He stood up to the bully Rudy Giuliani, the has-been NY mayor and
failed GOP presidential candidate, who was riding high at the time:
he stood firm even as the know-nothings booed him and he told the
truth about the gross stupidity and immorality of a foreign policy
that has reaped such a whirlwind in the years since that moment.

He stood up to the smears of the War Party — and they’re still
attacking him.

Yet his stature, far from being diminished, only grows.

At the age of 79, he is still speaking truth to power.

I have to tell a little story about Ron that underscores his sterling
personal qualities as well as his ideological virtues.

In my fiery youth, not even Ron Paul was radical enough for my
tastes and I remember penning (yes, it was so long ago that we
had pens in those days!) an article attacking him for “selling out.”

It was a long diatribe, which was published in a long-defunct
journal of which I was the editor.

Not long after, I was surprised to receive a letter from him which
was as gracious as can be, pointing out that “I don’t believe we are
as far apart as you believe” and warmly inviting me to visit with
him when I came to Washington.

I published the letter in our paper, and came across it the other
day as I was going through my old files.

Personally and politically, the man is a saint.

One last thing:

I’ve been a Ron Paul-watcher for many years, and what I’ve seen
of his long career is unusual in the sense that most people get more
conservative as they get older: Ron, on the other hand, only got
more radical.

Radicalism is often thought of as the exclusive province of youth
but in Ron’s case just the opposite pattern occurred.

Through some alchemy of spirit, he’s just gotten younger over the
years, which is perhaps part of the reason why he has inspired a
vital and growing youth movement that has no equivalent on the
left or the right.

Thanks in large part to Ron, the future of the libertarian movement
is bright indeed, and how can you thank a man for fulfilling the
dreams of your youth?

You can’t, really, you can only try.

http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/08/19/happy-birthday-ron-paul