First, questioning whether a strong defense and an interventionist policy are necessarily the same thing has deepened as a national discussion. While many seem to answer differently depending on which party is in power, many others still raise the question.

Second, how many times do you remember hearing questions about constitutionality before, say, 2006? It had been decades since I had heard anyone raise that concern.

Paul gave many, including myself, a renewed civics lesson. Which laws are properly established at the federal level? Which at the State level? What does it mean to have Enumerated Powers? Which existed first, the States or the Federal Government? Has America ever been without a central bank? The list goes on and on.

I think everything you’ve said here is pretty much right-on. The ONLY reason I would suggest working within the GOP is because it has the infrastructure that the 3rd parties don’t. I think libertarians should take a page from the socialists as they have (over time) taken over the Democratic Party (the differences between the socialists and the democrats are not a matter of principle but degree).

Aside from the shenanigans of the RNC, do you agree with my overall point that Ron Paul has made a difference?

But this is not why I left the Republican Party two weeks ago.

The Romney campaign, though assured of their 1144 vote win, were so petty and concerned about a feeble show of non-existent unity that they were willing to deny Paul delegates even a moment to declare votes for their candidate.

But this is not why I left the Republican Party two weeks ago.

The RNC added rules to ensure that future conventions will now be completely scripted, and the dominant candidate will be able to unseat whichever delegates he wishes. Future delegates will simply be props, required to cheer on cue. No thought required.

I began wondering: Why then, would anyone go through the successive elections in caucus states and the great personal expense to attend as a prop? Certainly, there must be opportunities for toadying and rent-seeking, but just as certainly, this will no longer be a deliberative body (to whatever degree it may have been in the past).

So one could leave this party, yet still vote in general elections. And having been mocked and dismissed, one could choose to vote for candidates of conscience, even in futility. Or one could refrain from voting entirely.

This is why I left the Republican Party two weeks ago.

If the Republican Party ever seems worthy of membership again, I may rejoin and vote in their primaries. But for now, they are not worthy, they offer no voice, they employ petty and unnecessary attack on their own membership, and they offer little or no substantive advantage over other big government spendthrift organizations.

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

- George Washington, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

George Washington may have had dental problems, but there was nothing wrong with his vision.