As someone has wisely pointed out, the critical difference between libertarians and what I will call constitutional conservatives (CC) is simply this: The libertarian believes in the rule of the autonomous self, whereas the CC believes in the rule of law. This explains why libertarians are more conflicted over abortion than CCs. For the CC, there is a natural law that obligates all people to a certain standard of behavior; thus, you can make a case for legal norms for the group that override the short-term interests of the individual. Libertarians seem to chafe at such universal norms being encoded into law. And that is why, although I do respect much of what Ron Paul does for conservatism, to me, libertarianism is an unreliable support, as much subject to the changing tides of relative morality as liberalism, just with a different emphasis.
Interesting enough, considering how the Ron Paulies are always claiming Reagan would not have supported the War on Terror, is another portion of that same interview with Reagan.
In discussing Viet Nam, he said, “Well, of course, we never should have sent them halfway around the world. You see, the Eisenhower policy had always been one of logistical support–help the South Vietnamese to be able to resist and take care of themselves, maintain themselves as a nation. It was John Kennedy who sent the first division in there. And he had to do it and when he did it he had to know that they were going to be followed by hundreds of thousands of men, that you couldn’t do it with just one division. I’m not privy nor is anyone else privy to the information that a President has when he makes such a decision, but, then came the mistake. Once you are going to commit yourself to a combat role and you’re going to ask young men to fight and die for your country, then you have a moral obligation as a nation to throw the full resources of the nation behind them and to win that war as quickly as possible and get it over with, and this is where we made the mistake: to pour half a million men in there, to kill 54,000 young men in a cause that Washington, that the government was unable or unwilling to win.”
Seems to me, Ron Paul falls under that category of “unable or unwilling to win.”
Whether or not he would have agreed with the initial invasion of Iraq is speculation on everybody’s part, since Reagan wasn’t faced with an attack like September 11, 2001, but the interview leaves little doubt that once committed, he would have opposed those who have been undermining the effort there.
On Ron Paul’s “Fortress America” concept, Reagan also said, “Fortress America is just what Lenin wanted us to have–whether it is world policeman or not. You know, Lenin said the Communists will take Eastern Europe, they will organize the hordes of Asia, he said they will then move into Latin America, and he said the United States, the last bastion of capitalism, will fall into their outstretched hands like overripe fruit. And that’s all that Fortress America is. Now, you don’t have to come through someone’s beachhead–you just go over them with missiles; and one of these days, under the present policies of the Congress, the United States will stand alone as Lenin envisioned it and then face the ultimatum from the enemy.”
Interesting stuff when you look at an entire interview, not just a selective quote.