Now Libertarian Republicans know where they stand with the GOP

By the GOP's own rules for running primaries, Libertarian Republican candidate Ron Paul should have         walked onto the floor of the GOP conventions first night as the second nominee.

Instead he was denied a chance to speak because he refused to agree to make it a full-throated endorsement of you-know-who.

He was denied a chance to be in the vote because the GOP's leadership conspired with certain state-level leaderships to prevent Paul from getting the minimum number of votes required to appear on last night's ballot.

Some of his delegates were denied places on the floor through more chicanery.

And the delegates he did have in any numbers found their states relegates to the nosebleed section of the hall, while less important states--but ones which were 100% in lockstep with the GOP's poo-bahs--got the places in the front (especially ones with anything but middle-aged white men, unlike 90%+ of the people there).

Then, to add insult to injury, the Mitt got the rule change he wanted--the right for the national leadership to override the states and choose which delegates got to come to the national convention in the future.

So much for states' rights. So much for the GOP's big tent. As far as Libertarians are concerned, you now have your marching orders: your job is to fall in line, shut up, salute whoever the national leadership anoints, and vote for him.

As for the idea that you might have even the slightest say in the party platform (have you read the party platform?), the slightest voice at the national convention, the slightest influence on the party's priorities--you have exactly the same chance at these as you'd have with the Democrats. Except they would have given you a voice.

Now you know how it feels to be a suitor for a lady who only keeps you around for your credit card.

You also know just how authoritarian is the party you've given your allegiance to.

And you should also know that the instant it regains power, the "smaller government, smaller deficit" commitment will fly out the window, just as it did the last time the GOP gained power, from 2000 through 2008.

Not that the GOP is keeping this a secret. Its commitment to a bigger military establishment than that of the next 17 nations, vastly in excess of anything we actually need, is crystal clear. And while you surely applaud the tax cuts of the Romney/Ryan plan, equally surely you can't applaud the fact that they won't say just how they'll shrink government to pay for those tax cuts, which will otherwise add trillions to the national debt.

If you follow national politics, you'll know what happens to vague promises. They aren't kept. Instead what you are guaranteed is four to eight more years of the GOP's real nature: borrow and spend. They won't spend on the same things as the Democrats would, but they'd spend just as much or more--as 2000-2008 proved. You can also be certain the Romney would sign every bill a Republican Congress sent him, because the second he's sworn in his first priority will be to do whatever it takes to get re-elected. Which means never opposing a Republican Congress, as it hands out the huge government contracts and tax breaks and subsidies to its friends.

Obama is not your ideological friend. But Romney isn't either, and you know it.

So as I said earlier, if you want to put the brakes on big federal government, given that Congress will continue to be Republican--and remembering that it's Congress, not the American President, that determines the budget and domestic policy for the most part--the least worst alternative for you is to vote for Obama.

If Libertarians do that in sufficient numbers maybe next time around the GOP leadership won't treat you like mushrooms. Again.