But are his ideas worth considering in the context of "how shall we be governed"?

(JMHO) Yes.  Enormously.  I’m not as apprehensive about Libertarianism as say…Ed.  But this jar we flitter around in (the lid only slightly cracked open on rare occasions,  revealing our passage to better things, …but we don’t fly towards liberty because it’s been sealed long enough for the boomers to get too old and tired and set, …& for their kids [us] to get, while angry about the ways & means, flummoxed by the chapters gone by), bamboozled by audio-visual extravagance & contrivance, torn between two poles: the act of living the day and the internal patriot that wants to shoulder up to the stone & give it a meaningful push in a “how/why” direction that is not sordid …& is kinda-sorta … Zen.  But we’re always (seemingly) on a treadmill …running …nowhere …quickly.  Somewhere is where we’d rather be.  But, no, the manufacturer’s sticker says it ain’t so, son, nowhere is exactly where you will be, it ain’t supposed to be okay, it ain’t EVER going to be okay again, take off your shoes, meek, lower and debase yourself, weak, there are killers in this airport, don’t speak, flying is a vacation celebration NO MORE, no hugs to greet you at the door, your “liberal” notions are run.  The new idea of fun is under thumb.  This is not a spirit path, it is a colony…and you are ants.  & you are ants.  This is the hee-haw ambition:  To stand and deliver the bad news in a nice way…while one hand goes for the wallet and the other for the throat.  But…really…we are fixed by what?  The u-g-l-y of spirit who set the market and the tone … & their toadies who go around thinking that their stand is righteous, right & long standing, righteous?  & it’s not the truth.  It’s the same as it’s always been from the schoolyard to the Senate:  Might equals right, spiritless (economic) dominion rule.  Take off those Goddamned moccasins and put on these hard-soled shoes…ye bloody colorful & sing-songing savages…and know my love is dominion.  …Or else!

Several years ago, I fasted, SunDanced, drummed & sang, hand-crafted, sweat-lodged, and otherwise labored outdoors beside a man: a Chief of a nomadic band of Lenapes, a two-tour Vietnam veteran, a “tunnel rat” (those of u who know that term know the million-mile significance of it), a man who could take out four capable men coming at him at once, take them out with lightning-precision and dead-on-accuracy with martial arts from China so dangerous that one has to be (at least struggling to be) of pure heart just to practice & train in these skills, …& this was one of the kindest, gentlest, warmest, wisest, most human spirits I’ve ever come to know.  A man who could calm a vicious, teeth bared and slavering, dog by getting right down at it’s level on all fours and contacting it, fearlessly showing the dog there’s no fear and nothing to fear.  If 51% of the liberal-leaning well-meaning learned beings on this planet were this sort of man or woman, …why…the tides would turn, in an instant with a pffft…a crackle and a swift and snapping p0p!, towards something more enlightened.  But this guru walks quietly among us and makes only occasional contacts…and effects only rare souls…and effects them well, …but at this rate it’ll take centuries, while the stupid and the damning hold the hammer and they like to use it and the sun is older and the moon is colder…and the grandmothers and grandfathers, aware of the Ghost Dance then so long ago, … are upon the four winds over calamitous seas … and they weep and they moan … and the Buffalo NEVER came home. 

I think as long as we cannot get out from under the thumb of both the insane right-right and (their handmaidens) the lunatic left-left ~~ the (greed) insane right-right holding the cards and the lunatic left-left providing material for the slaughter, then we are stuck (even amidst scores of very learned and decent humans being human) going around and around like lightning bugs in this jar, banging off the glass, as it begins to yellow…and further obscure the light outside this jail cell of dominion slave-labor, marketing and machines and traffic, bloody bottlenecks & traffic. 

My guess is, eventually, by the future equivalent of loudspeakers and cattle prods.

No shit there, bro.  It seems to be sliding towards all the worst rock-opera notions. 

Ever get the idea that the cockroaches have been at the tiller?  It’s funny how “film” has provided numerous visuals for decades, for the way that we are (actually) hammered daily by a weak (ugly) kind of sprit with the strongest possible ruthless, emotionless, rigid, and/or just simply stupid means of physical dominion over considerate beings.  But I think that’s the one physical limitation of all creation.  Dickhead or not, the aggressive-stupid plunders away…from the cradle to the grave.  Most swat flies in the house, while some hold out their finger so the fly can light, then take it to the door and let it out.  There are degrees of dissociative bullying.  Too many see flies, bugs, ants, lower forms, in all that they survey below their own social “class.”  & folks like Pat (for instance) do as well. A nice guy for all intents and purposes, but his flippant (parroting) use of the word liberal as a cuss-word is mindlessly pigeonholing and deafeningly ignorant of the human stain that his teachers churn out, so off kilter with reality it sweats of sewer water, but he probably will never budge from his hee-haw stand….  & I’m duly bound as an American citizen to protect his right to free speech ~~ that’s the rub.  Bummer …but meaningful. 

That is to say, if you want to have the satisfied feeling of voting for a candidate who might actually win

There is NO satisfaction in that at all anymore, it’s not about banners and rah-rah for me, personally ~~ not in any way anymore, Herring.  NO WAY BRO.  It’ about getting (our people~~&, by connectivity, the planet) out from under the thumb of domination (yeah, tyranny, it does seem like an exaggerated term in the 21^st Century, but nope, it rings true with every new bill that makes it past the big guy’s veto).  AS I SAID, Dr. Paul has served his community at the foot of how many birthing beds?  Hundreds.  Repeatedly he’s known the moment of birth, the suffering woman and the blessed sound of first life and the joy and relief of child and afterbirth being out of mama, and mama, exhausted, with baby &, hopefully, hubby together @ the height of matrimonial harmony.  How can he not be prepared, at least to a greater extent than many, to be “Presidential” for 4-8 years?  The worthy human element is strong in him.  But somehow I think the “satisfaction” element is more prevalent in your vote for Ron Paul, though, than it is in my potential vote for Obama.  Your vote for Ron Paul appears to be more of sentiment at this point (given the processes involved with him even getting to nose his horse up to the gate), while enough votes for Obama…may, may (may) [may] perhaps actually turn the tides on a broke notion…even if only just a bit.   Turning them enough so that men like Dr. Paul, on a path to wherever it is he sees Libertarianism leading, may see the light of day to the Presidency in decades to come.  But maybe you’re right.  Maybe if ENOUGH see a kind o evolution of ideas in this Libertarian, maybe…just maybe…enough public opinion could spring a dark horse…clear of the gate and beyond……….

& then in the next paragraph you rejoinder with…..

On the other hand, a significant portion of the population voting for RP could change the direction of the alleged debate in this country . . .

& you further your notion well.  Yes.  Maybe you’re on to something.  But that’d be a helova nut to crack, considering.  A Ron Paul Presidency would be a handy stiring-stick, yep.  With it’s vagaries apparent, it still could even be a far more tide-turning proposition than an Obama presidency.  & that, my friend, is really what I think we’re banging our heads against the wall trying to find.  A meaningful change that does truly represent the BEST interests and intentions of 21^st Century humanity.  & there in the core notions of Libertarianism, idealistically speaking, are those good notions, but then, on the other hand, if one reads Ed’s ongoing opinion, therein lies some solid logic against. Would it take that extreme turn?  “The south will rise again” and the like?  Or would Libertarianism merely (slowly, steadily) open the floodgates for “we, the people” notions that could awaken our best potential by regulating/balancing both fed and state gov ~~ as it bloody well should be!!??  We do seem to take every argument to the extremes in these matters, though, and it will be that balance between state and fed, those notions such as found in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” that will, if possible anymore in this overpopulated, over stimulated, over inoculated civilization, “fix” our present broken country.  Afterall the Constitution (ideally) aims to protect we, the people, from an all powerful fed-with-impunity (which looks to be our present condition in cahoots with industry leaders).  Can it?  Can we?  I …just don’t know, my brother.  There’re stronger, smarter, people than me out there banging their heads against this mad buggar’s wall, and to little effect.  Hell, I’m …just flailing fingers over loose soil and tearing at handholds of stem and roots just to stay on the faltering edge of this conversation with you ~~ in nearly over my head.  .  You make a good point. 

. . . not as in a "sea change," but as in a slight shift of the national rudder. For me, that's as large as this hope can grow for now . . . that people will listen, take it upon themselves to learn more about the structure and purpose of our government's founding documents, and if they come to a considered position that those documents are historical artifacts rather than living, then at least they've lost little in the process & can go on voting for whatever chump from among the stump chumps gets its party nod.

If they find themselves at a considered position that those founding documents remain the living heart of our country's ideology, even with the provisions allowing for change, then perhaps people will begin to ask important questions--again leading to "how shall we be governed," or better yet, "how shall our government be allowed to conduct itself?"

Nobody on the national stage is asking questions of that nature except for Ron Paul. I maintain that a vote for him is better than the standard vote for "the lesser of two evils" that we get each & every 4 years. The RP voter may not get to be among the vote pool that elects the president from among the top-tier gasbags, but I maintain that there's not much worth to that anyway.

That last part I will just leave unscathed, as it iz well said…and worthy of a reread.  I think we could share a property-border comfortably, Herring.  & my vote is not cast. 

Parallel:  I’m reading this book that a friend recommended, A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe.  A sweeping epic year in the life of across-the-spectrum Atlantans.  What stands out so far is the fact that EVERYONE, from the basement-level laborers (& less) to the city government (& higher), all people born into one geographical region or another, are eking away at some motion of trying to climb the rungs of personal survival &/or achievement.  Rungs, …one at a time or several at a time…and there’s little difference between the rungs at any level.  There is cause & effect, and demand & compromise, ambition and compromise, diligence & compromise.  But those born on the affluent side of the tracks…appear…in larger numbers (sigh) … to take to the rungs with gold-blind notions far more willing to “compromise” their “ethics” for sake of advancement (and they call it growing up, coming to terms with “the way things are”) while more & more of the (intelligent/well-meaning) labor-intensive folks (those who can be bothered to endeavor beyond moot toady-ship to the status quo or self-flagellation and/or banishment to home and pc or quiet desperation at the end of the bar or nightstick & taser toting mechanisms for the man or the pop-mainstream wanabe hot 101 gang-bang-thang) tend to lean more towards increasing their ethics (which the affluent call being naïve) & connectivity to people and the earth.  Oversimplification (generalization) again on my part?  Yes, but that’s the best my brain has to offer at the moment.  & I suppose n’er the twain shall meet?  …heh

PS: Turd sandwich! Giant Douchebag! Turd Sandwich! Giant Douchebag!

Yeah, Trey Parker and Matt Stone (guileless dickheads that they must be, gota be) hit the nail on the head more often than not, no? 

P.S. I hope this isn’t too cryptic or smeared an attempt @ an honest response.  It nearly broke my melon, Herring.  As I said, you make a good point.  Now I’m out to the garage to lift some free-weights with my (15 yr-old) son beside my chainsaw that looks a little something like this…

• Shindaiwa-built premium 2-cycle engine
• 1-piece electronic ignition
• Boot-mounted Walbro carburetor
• USFS-approved spark arrestor muffler
• 5-point anti-vibration system
• Chain brake
• High-torque engine
• Ultra-high chain speed
• Rubber-coated chain catcher
• Fully adjustable, automatic chain oiling pump
• Hand guards
• Rim-type sprocket
• 2-ring piston
• High-impact nylon rear handle and recoil housing 4-bolt muffler

Accessories 

• 18" Pro Lite DG (bar/chain) / .325"
• http://www.shindaiwa.com/nam/en/products/chainsaws/488.php