Tim Dickinson of the Rolling Stone blog has a quick blurb on Ron Paul - the highlight being:

    And then…I remember Hurricane Katrina, the darkest metastasis of the ideology those like Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater before him have given such an eloquent voice. New Orleans is where the sink-or-swim doctrine of hyper individualism and personal responsibility allowed many of our most vulnerable to sink — all too literally — beneath the storm surge.

Unfortunately Dickinson has a bit of a misguided view of Goldwater and Paul’s views on individualism. In the face of catastrophe, people will leave. That isn’t individualism - that is reality. Dickinson also does a grandiose disservice to those individuals who did stay to help others. No, it wasn’t the failure of individualism - it was the failure of collectivism at its finest.