Letters on Ron Paul's defining moment - No. 2

I wrote this on July 30, 2007, in an email explaining to a friend my decision to support Ron Paul,

Your questioning me about my position [on Ron Paul] has led me to write down my thoughts to clarify them, to qualify them, as they can be so easily misunderstood. I've been meaning to write this down anyway. You just happened to be the first person to ask. I can use this writing elsewhere....

There are a few more positions I strongly disagree with Ron Paul on, just so there's no misunderstanding.

...

Another reservation I have is Paul's association with members of what one fellow from Cato calls the "Fever Swamp".

My own definition of libertarian liberalism is close to the definition put forth by Dean Russell in 1955, Who is a Libertarian?, where Russell coins the word to replace the word liberalism, the meaning of which was being obscured. Unfortunately there have been two camps who have laid claim to the word over the past few decades in the U.S. One is the liberal camp, as understood in the U.S. before the "new liberals" or "social liberals" morphed into socialists and started attacking people's rights (There's a great history that discusses some of this in Alain Laurent's Le libéralisme américain : Histoire d'un détournement.) Then there are the anarchists, whom I view as feudalists. Here be beasts. I could write much more on this, but I'll leave it at that for now. I view the Cato Institute as being part of the liberal camp, and the "Fever Swamp" as being part of the anarchist camp. Ron Paul speaks and acts like he is in the liberal camp for the most part, which is why I have decided to support him. I may change my mind.