I think Graham hit it pretty well. Virtually all of Molyneux’s complaints about Ron Paul (or really, the idea of Ron Paul) are little more than straw men he has crafted so that he might have something to attack about the man who has become a thousand times more popular and prominent than he ever will, and has undeniably done more to turn people on to libertarianism than pretty much any other single person. This, combined with Molyneux’s narcissism creates a cognitive dissonance that he must find a way to deal with…and of course his method of choice (like most others in such a position) is belittlement and attack.
And this sort of negativity — which I think can really most aptly be labled no more complexly than “jealousy” — is of course not unique to the bald self-proclaimed philosophy king.
I read this Walter Block piece where he called out anti-Paul lady Wendy McElroy for basically supporting libertarianism without being libertarian. It really blew me away to read some of the stuff she wrote. (Granted, it was during the 2008 presidential campaign, but still.) Even then things were making a huge impact. But it doesn’t even need to be stated how exponentially larger every aspect was the second time around…when you can see how much the influence as grown, and the visible results it was having at the height of the campaign, as well as the residuals it continues to show. I’m quite interested to hear a response from her and see if she’ll still try to stand by her claim that “the millions of dollars as well as the incalculable time and energy that libertarians have donated to elect [Ron Paul] will disappear down the drain,” and that “support for Ron Paul diverts money/time from causes and activities that have a lasting impact rather than one that evaporates after the faux-euphoria of political campaigning.”
I honestly don’t know if it’s a genuine disbelief that someone like Paul and his methods of spreading the word and making a difference would actually be effective (which, I have no idea how anyone could possibly try to make that claim…at least by this point), or whether it’s more just a simple jealousy that the people berating Paul have…
…that they (McElroy, Molyneux, et al) have dedicated their lives to something, and feel like they are being true to principle and “doing it right”, and yet are virtually unknown, and essentially have very little (if anything) to show for their efforts in the way of visible impact and influence…whereas someone like Paul…a politician, is at the front of a revolution, and, as Block said “has already put libertarianism on the map in a way that no one in the history of civilization has ever done.” I’m inclined to believe it’s a bit of both…but more so the latter. I find that these anarchist (at least, the anti-Paul types) tend to be rather ego-centric, and quite self-important.
Here’s a Mises Blog post with various examples (including the McElroy one). And here’s my post on typical Molyneux.