In the 2008 presidential election, Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. In doing so, he effectively endorsed Baldwin's running mate, Darrell Castle, as the man to be President of the United States if something happened to Baldwin.
This year, the Constitution Party have nominated Castle as its presidential candidate, and Castle has claimed that he is more libertarian than Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's candidate. Is he?
On the one hand, when asked in a YouTube video about books he would recommend, the suggestions that he comes out with are all quite acceptable by libertarian standards. The first three are Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, G. Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island, and The Thousand Year War by Richard J Maybury. So that's Austrian economics, opposition to central banking, and a non-interventionist foreign policy.
On the other hand, Cody Quirk believes that Castle is definitely not more libertarian than Gary Johnson, and gives reasons. I'm not convinced by Quirk's arguments.
But, to be honest, the answer one gives is really going to be based on what exactly one means by "libertarian". Gary Johnson has his understanding of libertarianism, Darrell Castle has his, Cody Quirk has his, I have mine, and you probably have yours.
In an attempt to answer the question "Is Darrell Castle really more libertarian than Gary Johnson", I went to "I Side With", and looked at their answers to the policy questions that were asked, and tried to assess which of the two gave more libertarian answers.
Here are the answers they gave.
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