As Ron Paul Republicans have slowly been making inroads within the party structure, Congressman Paul himself has been gaining in influence over the GOP. Every Republican in the House is a now a co-sponsor of his bill to audit the Federal Reserve. Mainstream conservatives quote liberally from Paul's reading list, including Thomas Woods' Meltdown and some of Schiff's work, when grilling Obama Treasury officials about the economy.
Even on issues of war and peace, Paul isn't always in the minority anymore. A handful of conservatives who supported the Iraq war, like Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), have joined him in questioning President Obama's Afghanistan escalation. All but five Republicans voted with Paul against the supplemental funding of Iraq and Afghanistan, including the entire leadership. They haven't suddenly become noninterventionists -- the issue for most Republicans was extraneous spending, not the wars themselves -- but it is nevertheless a major departure from the party's stance under President Bush.
It is of course the Obama administration and the financial meltdown that have given Paulian ideas a new resonance, not so much his dissent on the war. (Though Paul's success in fundraising and attracting the kind of young voters who have been fleeing the GOP in droves has had an impact as well.)
I don't think trying to ostracize people from the liberty movement is the right thing to do. I always tell people who criticize our movement because of the tin foil hatters, etc. that the beauty of the movement is in the diversity. The right to be free. All of us want the same thing - adherence to the Constitution - even the kooky among us want that. That, above all else is what our focus should always be on. It needs to be okay that we all have the right to think how we want, and to speak freely about it, whether we like someone elses view or not. Otherwise we become exactly like what we are fighting against.
