"So when I got the invitation to go to Dr. Timothy...Leary's Beverly Hills house Saturday to watch him endorse [Ron] Paul for president, I was curious."

Matt Welch | December 30, 2011

Am I the only one detecting a resemblance there? Here's a Friday pre-New Year's Fun Link: The L.A. Daily News re-posts a Sept. 28, 1988 column from Debra Saunders including the above quote. Excerpt from the time capsule:

Most Libertarians I've met agonize over whether to vote Republican or Libertarian, not wanting to help out a Democrat (even though they say there's no difference between the two).

This group consisted of Democratic Libertarians who feared lest a vote for Paul would boost Bush. At Leary's, there were anti-drug-law and civil libertarians whose main concern with the economy, like many liberals, was the economic disaster they foresaw.

Paul, himself a former Republican congressman who has written for the John Birch Society, explained, "A liberal is naturally very anti-totalitarian."

There's other stuff in there about politicized AIDS research, freezing Leary's dismembered head, and so on. The takeaway:

[I]t was a pleasure to listen to a presidential hopeful willing to tell potential supporters a string of policies he knew they'd hate. Then again, Paul wasn't looking for blind agreement, he was glad to find people who'd listen.

Whole thing here. Saunders' contemporary take on Paul here.

Reason interviewed Leary back in 1977. More stuff at our Ron Paul topic page.

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.

Provocateur|12.30.11 @ 10:53AM|#

Screw you Deb.....doesn't care who wins as long as it is from FACTION A or FACTION B.

Turn on, tune in, gambol out|12.30.11 @ 11:17AM|#

"The Big Cities are plastic fantastic...but there are still places you can get away into nature."

~Timothy Leary, Chaos and Cyberculture
www.scribd.com/doc/35954417/Ti.....er-Culture

pmains|12.30.11 @ 1:25PM|#

Exactly. Go out and gambol. Nobody is stopping you.

SIV|12.30.11 @ 11:02AM|#

This group consisted of Democratic Libertarians who feared lest a vote for Paul would boost Bush.

Dukakis-tarians, I hate those guys.

CalebT|12.30.11 @ 11:06AM|#

So, would John Lennon have been so kind as to pen an anthem for any of the Ron Paul presidential campaigns (1988, 2008, or 2012)?

|12.30.11 @ 11:08AM|#

Imagine no government.
I wonder if you can.

John Lennon|12.30.11 @ 11:11AM|#

Marx's theoretical government-less, class-less communist society?...SURE!

|12.30.11 @ 11:23AM|#

No, no, I was positing a libertarian John Lennon.

I read somewhere that he was actually more conservative than he liked the public to think. Could be bull, I suppose.

CalebT|12.30.11 @ 11:25AM|#

The commie-pinko stuff sold more records; ironically, it was a business decision.

Brett L|12.30.11 @ 11:46AM|#

I've also read that he had moved pretty far to the right before he died. I did see an article where he discussed how Yoko (whose father was a banker) helped him get okay with having a shitton of money. So he may have been well on his way to monocle wearing and mustache twirling.

|12.30.11 @ 11:25AM|#

Imagine my songs were an epitome of mediocrity.

It's easy if you try.

Imagine all the people not being as fully of shit as me.

That's also easy -- you don't even need to try.

/Lennon

KingTaco|12.30.11 @ 11:32AM|#

Paul, himself a former Republican congressman who has written for the John Birch Society, explained, *"A liberal is naturally very anti-totalitarian.*

Left off for brevity were the following quotes: "Also, up is very naturally down. Black is very much white.And Dry tends to be naturally Wet."

I hope a sizable amount of narcotics were consumed in order to come around to the position that liberals are naturally opposed to heavy-handed, oppressive governance.

.|12.30.11 @ 2:28PM|#

Swap in 'classical liberal' and you might be less confused.

Max|12.30.11 @ 11:35AM|#

Matt must be smoking dope rolled in pages from Ron Paul's newsletters. The ink is halucinagenic.

|12.30.11 @ 11:48AM|#

How many times must it be said, Max? When you bend your mom over the desk and screw her, make sure you're not simultaneously reading H&R, or we'll think you're DOUBLY weird.

Mr Whipple|12.30.11 @ 12:15PM|#

Of course they it was. How else do you think he made a million dollars from them.

|12.30.11 @ 11:36AM|#

Democratic Libertarians

The cognitive dissonance of this term is threatening to take away my buzz.

|12.30.11 @ 11:49AM|#

Look up 'Bourbon Democrats' on Wikipedia. At some point in the past, there were Democrats that gave a shit about freedom. There are still some now, I'm sure, but all four of them can't be seen, lest they be lynched by the socialistic mob.

Mr. Chartreuse|12.30.11 @ 12:41PM|#

I think the only way the Bourbons could come back is if Grover Cleveland rose from the dead. And I'm sure magical Monkey Paws are in short supply.

Zombie Grover Cleveland|12.30.11 @ 1:16PM|#

"If elected, I promise to eat the brains of every Congressman and Senator who won't put petty politics aside, followed by the brains of those who do."

Brian Doherty|12.30.11 @ 3:03PM|#

From my 1996 Liberty profile of Dr. Leary:
"Why is he a libertarian? "I'm a humanist. The state has no right to tell adult humans what to do with their personal lives. I'm not waiting for the government to give me permission." A lot of people probably feel similarly, but not that many take active steps like joining the LP. "There's an enormous minority of people who are basically libertarians, but see no reason why they should say it." The notion of an obligation of any sort to be an activist about one's personal politics rankles him. "My politics is basically saying that power resides inside the individual. The state has simply no right -- politics, laws, bills, lobbying about personal life, censor sexual expression, drugs? What does that mean? I was accused by many, like Abbie Hoffman, of luring a young generation away by making them feel good, allowing them to reward themselves."

Leary is not afraid of the market, unlike so many "civil" libertarians who might agree with him about censorship and personal-freedom issues. During our party conversation, he had said, "I get mad when liberals insult advertising," calling the great cathedrals of Europe grand advertisements for the Catholic Church and declaring advertising the nexus of the greatest aesthetic activity in our culture. Many modern liberals, I now suggested, might agree with him about certain aspects of his pro-liberty philosophy and not others. He was aggressively dismissive of such people. "That's basically socialist, communist, totalitarian. The so-called liberal is totalitarian. Even more so now. [Even] back in the '60s, so-called liberal left-wing magazines were very opposed to psychedelics."

Brian Doherty|12.30.11 @ 3:04PM|#

He was still proud of having hosted that Paul event in 88 in 96 as well.

Brian Doherty|12.30.11 @ 3:06PM|#

And yes, there is a strong resemblance between the two great libertarian Drs. physically. I think it was more obvious when they were both in their 50s.

veemee sashimi|12.30.11 @ 4:14PM|#

He actually looks more like Rand than Ron.

Reason.com