To the editor:

In this era when increasing numbers of people seem to think "the world owes me a living," it was encouraging to see that Ron Paul’s libertarian philosophy was finding great appeal in the young.

Of course, in Sen. Paul’s case, there is a lot of baggage involving racism, isolationism and ignoring women’s rights, to cite a few. But for the moment, I am writing only of Paul’s economic philosophy.

Big government — federal, state and local — has taken hold, and we depend more and more on public services to take care of increasing aspects of our welfare. Recently, this care for the individual has expanded to our medical well-being, and some legislators would go further with the rationale that government knows better how to make our lives safer.

Recent examples include restricting the use of car cellphones and the near passing of legislation to license boat operators.

By contrast, what is most encouraging is that libertarianism has lit the spark in future generations who want to take back the right to make decisions themselves. This sort of regard for individual initiative is vital to this country’s leadership in the free world.

Richard Chapin, 
Georgetown

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