Re-reading Hayek's book and I want to repeat a sentence and then comment.
"But while progress toward what is commonly called "positive" action was necessarily slow, and while for immediate improvement Liberalism had to rely on the gradual increase in wealth which freedom brought about it had to constantly fight proposals which threatened this progress."
1) Liberal in this book is used the way it was meant to be used about a hundred years ago, in other words one hundred and eighty degrees from what is generally understood to be liberal today. Unfortunately many freedom loving individuals may not understand that and misconstrue what a libertarian is just for that reason. In my mind the libertarian manifesto is a few words from Jefferson's hand on the Declaration of Independence declaring "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to be everyone's right.
2) Freedom and free markets create wealth slowly and steadily. You run into trouble when you try to short cut freedom to reach artificial goals. Needless to say our freedoms have been pretty badly cut up since FDR's administration made Washington D. C. a center of federal authority.
3) Ron Paul's life long focus on liberty has built a slow steady brick by brick fortress of a campaign much like the steady economic progress described by Hayek. It doesn't flip flop. It grows when others go out on a limb against liberty and then have to retrench and mend their ways. There is no desperate say anything necessary to get elected about the Paul campaign. The GOP has a revolution on their hands and it looks very much like Goldwater versus Rockefeller.
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