Rand Paul can either be one of two things: a watered down Reaganesque conservative or a libertarian RINO that's playing his cards close to his chest. Lets say he gets elected. What's the outcome in each scenario?

Rand isn't all that libertarian and just likes being in power:

We get the wonderful disappointment that politics is the same as always and get some marginal freedoms back at best, but the machine keeps turning about the same. Wars continue, the Fed continues, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Even worse, all the associations with Ron, all the free market rhetoric, and all the libertarian ideas lose all credibility and legitimacy, as the decline of the US continues and people blame free markets (ironically) again for everything. Now an entire generation of young people who are fed up with the establishment get the liberty well poisoned big time.

I don't think we can overcome that, and I think it could be extremely damaging.

Or, Rand Paul is Dr. No Jr. and ushers in a new golden age of libertarianism.

The government is downsized. It stops invading everywhere. It stops spying on us. Economic restrictions are lightened, but not that much. At best, Rand will get to use his executive powers, and he'll get to repeal obamacare and maybe a few other terrible ideas. We might even get welfare reforms, oh boy!

The truth is, the President might be able to halt the expansion of the State, or even turn it back a bit, but he lacks the power to legislate, and so he'll have to play ball in order to do anything at all. Assuming that we get all we can out of him before he's probably just impeached, if not shoved off the ticket in 2020, we'll be marginally better off, maybe...

But the entire US economy is a bubble propped up by printed money. The Fed is working overtime to ensure that prices stay high. Things will be let go at the first sign of threat to the banks. They will crush the economy and drag Rand down with them if they're not left to loot and pillage as they have been.

And on top of that, eventually Rand leaves office, and we'll probably get a return to the norm. The trend of power growth will continue, because the system of incentives in democratic government is fundamentally broken. For anyone who plans on living a few more decades, it'll be a slight bump in the road to serfdom.

So, we can't really win in the long term. Freedom isn't going to come from politicians, but by forging our own solutions. Bitcoin is starting a revolution, and it's only the beginning. We have good ideas. We can make things work, but we need to focus really hard on that future, not wishing for the second coming of Christ to save us. It's up to us.