I know he's not exactly everyone's favourite around here, but from some sites I read, and a small crew of Kossack libertarians I have encountered, plus his stance against the Iraq war, there are some that have been taken in by the Ron Paul crazytrain.
Today, alone of the entire U.S. House of Representatives, Representative Ron Paul, M.D. (R-TX) voted against the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act. The bill passed the House, 418-1.
Let's spell out what this means.
The bill is actually quite short and very simple: Stop the US government from spending any money with companies that do business with the genocidal Sudanese regime.
Ron. Paul. Voted. No.
He didn't vote "present" and he didn't abstain. He actually voted against this. I don't know why. I know he makes a big deal of his libertarian principles and is a constitutional purist, but I can't even find any constitutional grounds to oppose this. It tells the US government not to spend money. It sends no troops, requires no UN resolutions, and there is no pork whatsoever in the bill.
So he must have opposed it on libertarian grounds right? Well it's not trade restrictions and it doesn't put an embargo. It has exemptions for those doing business exclusively in the south (where the genocide targets are, the victims!) It allows the president to certify national security exemptions on a case by case basis.
In fact, the bill is the essence of how libertarians claim the market should correct immoral behaviour: An entity is going to choose not to spend money on entities whose behaviour they find objectionable. The US Government, at the direction of its congress, representing the American people has said "We don't want to spend any money with these genocidal people" and Paul voted against that.
So I don't know exactly what libertarian principle tells Paul to vote against this, but it makes him a heartless ideologue. No better than Mao allowing millions to starve while instituting his cultural revolution.
Ron Paul would rather allow genocide to continue in the name of preserving his principles.
This is the essence of damning the torpedoes and putting abstract ideological notions ahead of millions of actual human lives.
So remember this if you have been foolish enough to find Paul appealing and especially if you know people who do. Tell them about this. It's simply astonishing.
What a despicable and contemptable man. Being principled is useless if the principles are disastrous.
Update - 2 Aug, 11:20am EST
Libertarians, riddle me this: The market is supposed to punish companies that behave inappropriately. So if Ford sells cars that kill people through design flaws, they will go out of business. Sudan is killing its own citizens systemically. Yet Paul and other libertarians here argue divestment and sanctions will not help. This is a logical non-sequitur. This is the essence of how the market should correct bad behaviour, by refusing to give money and business to agents that behave poorly.
It is astonishing and very depressing to see Kossacks defending this. Take a step back and examine your beliefs: Here they lead you to allowing genocide to continue, while doing nothing. Can you seriously tell yourself there is no flaw in your principles? If my principle for making a cake tells me I must add concrete, I would like to believe that after 10 or 12 tries to bake a cake along those lines, I would re-examine my support for concrete based flour.
In short, your libertarian principles that lead you to defend this, are simply wrong. It doesn't matter how moral your means are, if the ends are horrendous, you must seek new means.