OK, I’m a day late on this one but I’ve been in Canada, so I’m catching up and I can’t not bring this up. Individualist anarchist Wendy McElroy (who I think is a Paul supporter but I could be wrong):
I don’t get it. So Guy Fawkes was used as a role model in a comic book (actually a wonderful graphic novel V for Vendetta that was trashed by its movie adaptation)…does that make him a libertarian ideal? There was nothing libertarian about Fawkes. He was a Catholic crusader who wanted to blow up Parliament as part-and-parcel of removing a Protestant monarch from power. He wasn’t against government or tyranny; he was against one form of government that he wanted to replace with another form he liked better: a Catholic one. There is no indication that Fawkes was a champion of the people whose personal vision of political power would have produced less tyranny than what proceeded it. Certainly, 17th century Catholic states were no more tolerant than Protestant ones — indeed, the Protestant Netherlands were freer and more tolerant than most. If wanting to overthrow a government per se makes you a libertarian, why not idealize Che Guevara? At least he was a successful revolutionary.