Ron Paul was my congress critter for a while when I lived out in the sticks (I was in Tom Delay's district and then when the repugnants redistricted I ended up in Paul's -- talk about a distinction w/o a difference). I now have the dubious pleasure of being 'represented' in the US House by John Culberson who hates mass transit as much as Delay and has caused almost as much damage to regional transportation policy as Delay did previously. But that's another story. . .
Paul is not any kind of libertarian as far as I'm concerned. He's squishy on the drug war, he's virulently anti-immigration and he's anti-abortion. Real small 'l' libertarians I'm familiar with (e.g.those who write for Reason magazine) find those positions anathema. The only libertarian-ish positions he takes are the anti-war and anti-tax positions and those could just as easily be defined as paleo-conservative isolationist (e.g. Pat Buchanan) as any kind if libertarian.
But the really fucked up thing about him that someone (Shane?) pointed out about his anti-scientific views on evolution is that he claims "he's not qualified to have an opinion" on that. What a fucking weasel. The guy is a graduate of Duke's Medical School and he's an ob/gyn. I'd think it was scary if I actually believed him, that a licensed physician (esp an ob/gyn!) had slept through embryology both as an undergrad and as a med student. But I don't beleave the weasel, so it's not scary in that sense.
-j
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"Humanity will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
(Voltaire)