There is no more time for games, no room for hurt feelings. Ron Paul fans, you need to choose, because not voting for Romney is a vote for Obama. It’s that simple. And you could make the difference.

Maybe Romney isn’t the uncompromising Ayn Rand hero you’d design if you could build your ideal candidate from scratch, but he’s a lot better than the guy on whose watch this happened:

Making no choice in this election is a choice – it’s a choice for a collectivist who will get two or three Supreme Court picks over a man who picked a guy, Paul Ryan, who understands capitalism and its unbreakable link to human freedom.

Now, this is a two-way street. Romney and Ryan need to reach out to libertarians over their common ground. Fortunately, there is lots of common ground.

No, the Republican Party is not a libertarian party, but it is the only party with any libertarian element. It’s the only place you have any chance of being heard. And with guys like Rand Paul and the libertarian-friendly Tea Party elements, you can be in the GOP.

Sure, the Democrats posture as guardians of freedom on a couple of issues – abortion, gay marriage – but that’s just a pose. It’s not part of any philosophy of human freedom; these are one-off policy choices made not because of a love for the Constitution but because they are demanded by the interest groups Democrats need to win elections.

When freedom becomes inconvenient, Democrats drop it like it’s hot.

You can say a lot about libertarians, but they are principled about their view of the Constitution. They don’t compromise, and in many cases they earn the respect of conservatives (though never, ever, of Democrats).

It’s hard to count how many times conservatives have watched GOP debates and muttered “Damn, I’d vote for Ron Paul if he’d just stop talking about foreign policy.”

There’s overlap with the Republicans but there is none with the Democrats. And that’s not surprising. Libertarians believe in principles of liberty, as they see them. Liberals believe in raw power to impose their will as they see fit.

Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Virgil Goode do not stand for collectivism. But right now, they stand in the way of stopping collectivism.

Let’s not sugar-coat it – there are some real differences between libertarians and conservatives. Foreign policy comes to mind; we conservatives see libertarian foreign policy as naive, while libertarians see conservative foreign policy as overseas adventurism. The drug war is another difference of opinion, though one the libertarians would have a hearing on in the GOP as their influence grows. We don’t need to agree on everything.

With the Democrats, you agree on nothing. We all saw the Democrat convention. It was a collectivist congregation worshiping at the altar of big government. Free this, free that, bailouts this, bailouts that.

There was no there there for principled libertarians. Nothing.

The Republicans are not libertarians, but at least libertarian-conservatives make up an influential and growing part of the party. There are exactly zero “libertarian-liberals.” Nor can there be; Democrats embrace everything libertarians oppose.

That’s why it’s silly to dismiss Romany as no different than Obama. Some wave off their obligation to choose with a cliché, that Romney is just “the lesser of two evils.”

Even if that’s true, the key is “lesser.” If you have to choose between encountering a hubcap thief and an axe murderer, you’d be a fool to shrug your shoulders and risk some face time with the dude with the hatchet.

This is no time to “make a statement” or pout that Ron Paul got treated badly in Tampa. He did get treated badly in Tampa, and that was stupid and unnecessary. But if you are truly dedicated to the Constitution you won’t let it be trampled in order to make some soon-to-be-moot point to the anonymous GOP party hacks responsible for not giving Ron Paul a primo speaking slot.

Priorities, people. Nothing less than the Constitution is at stake here.

No choice is a choice, and with the polls showing a dead-even race every vote that does not go to Romney is effectively a vote for Obama. There’s no debate here; you opt out and you support Obama by default. How can any principled libertarian do that?

Obama’s spent nearly four years trampling the First Amendment. Filmmakers who embarrassed the regime are rousted by cops at 1:30 a.m. Administration diplomats work with the UN to put in place blasphemy laws that give foreign mobs veto power over our right to speak. Religious organizations are told they must act contrary to their conscience as commanded by the government.

The Second Amendment is under fire and is just one Supreme Court vote from being snatched away. Our government sends guns to Mexican criminals in order to justify further crack-downs on American citizens.

At this rate, pretty soon the Administration will trash the Third Amendment and be quartering troops in citizens’ homes to save money that it’ll then redistribute to its cronies.

Romney’s not your dream candidate. We get that. He’s not most of ours either. But the inescapable fact – whether you like it or not, whether it’s fair or not – is that either he or Obama will be the next president.

Don’t be the guy in 20 years who looks over his shoulder to make sure no policemen are listening and then says to his kids, “Back in 2012, I was mad because Ron Paul lost and then got disrespected. I loved the Constitution, but I was mad, and so I let the guy who hated the Constitution win. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

The Romney-Ryan camp needs to do its part too; they need to reaffirm their commitment to Constitutional liberty. Freedom needs to be part of the conversation, not just Obama’s appalling record. While they can’t undo the gratuitous insults at the convention, they can make their case to the possibly decisive libertarians.

Ron Paul guys, Gary Johnson guys, Virgil Goode guys… the Constitution needs you. It needs you now. It needs you to put hard, hurt feelings aside and help elect the only one of the two candidates who has any chance of moving America in the direction you want.

Support and vote for Mitt Romney, or help Obama complete his transformation of America into a nation that violates every principle you claim you embrace.

It’s time to choose.