Maybe I'm making a mistake involving myself but here I go. 
Although I'm sure I disagree with ironman in a lot of things including this topic, I have to side with him against you Zucas on the "copying" issue.  You are nitpicking him to hell when he is more right than wrong in his characterization of you on this. 

You say you never said the tea partiers were copying libertarians?  What about, "There is a little bit of bias on my side due to me being a libertarian and not liking those people which I think are just a bunch of imitators"?

And for that matter, in this very post you say you think they are "adopting and misusing some libertarian values for their own [purposes]."  In what way exactly does the word "copying" not apply as shorthand for "adopting values"?  Just because you don't accuse them of literally plagiarizing the Libertarian Party website or something?  Or does it only count as copying if they don't abuse the copied material? 

You say, "nowhere does it state that they were trying to copy the libertarian ideals to push that as their main platform."  But it sounds like you think they were trying to copy them for a different reason.  (Pushing their own agenda, instead of libertarianism, which you apparently think they think they can do better cloaked in pseudo-libertarianism.) 

Thank you, you proved my point. The tea partiers have NO affiliation with the libertarian party...none whatsoever, the ideals did not come from the libertarian party any more than from the Democratic party, and not once during this entire thread have you denounced what Opa said about Sarah Palin, you were just wasting my time trying to tell me you never said that the tea partiers were trying to copy Libertarians. IF you even bother to reply to this, practice what you preach first, go back and read our exchanges...you don't have a leg to stand on.

@ montana, Get off your high horse??? You tell me to shut up and that I'm annoying  and you have the audacity to tell ME to get off MY high horse as if you are better than me???, That seems rather hypocritical don't you think? And btw, this is a forum, in case you didn't know, a forum is a place where people do this little thing called talking. If you don't like it, then what are you doing here???

I have an idea, how about everyone calms down and just sticks to the substance of the debate...then I don't have to do a bunch of paperwork (ie warnings/bans/etc..).

We aren't quite there yet, but I can tell when a discussion is headed in that direction and right now just about everyone in here can benefit from taking a breath and making the discussion a little less personal.

So take that breath, and then calmly make your points while pretending it's OK for people to disagree with you and not mean it as a personal insult.

The Bad Toupee of the Month Club.

I thought it was jeri curl of the month, badgenome.

All I know is, if he paid more than a buck fifty for that thing, he's no fiscal conservative.

I read that Rand Paul thinks racism and segregation are okay...that true?

SciFi -

No. He got trapped in an interview by Rachel Maddow, a very ultra-left commentator on MSNBC. She distorted a lot of stuff he was talking about. Essentially, she asked him about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and grilled him on it in such a way to make him look racist....Despite the fact he is certainly anti-racist.

I think the problem was around business' right to refuse people. I think he was trying to make the point that businesses had the right to choose clientele, and she made it into a racial issue....Whereas Rand wasn't trying to mean it in such a way.

I think you meant to say TEA PARTY!

I am posting the links to the interview so you can make up your own mind about him.  The actual interview in part 1 starts at about the 5 minute mark now for my opinion of him based on the interview.

He thinks that people should be allowed to be racist since it exercises their 1st amendment to freedom of speech.  He also thinks that it is ok for private instituitions to discriminate based on color which is also known as segregation.  He thinks that public instituitions aka government owned instituitions should not discriminate.

If you watch the interview you will see that he tries his best to duck and dodge giving concrete answers but the few times he does give an answer it's very telling.  Most people today don't want to come out and say they are racist but instead they use subliminal messages and catch phrases to show it.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3O2rBz9gwo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_qya7w0hs