My husband and I attended a special event today in Orange County, CA. The Mises Institute had a conference called Society Without the State: Law and Order in a Free World. Speakers were Jeff Deist, President of the Mises Institute; David Gordon, a Senior Fellow at the Institute; Llewellyn Rockwell, founder and chairman of the Mises Institue, and editor of LewRockwell.com (among other credentials); Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Distinguished Scholar at the Institute, televison commentator and author; and Dr. Ron Paul, a now-retired 12 term Congressman. Dr. Paul was the 1988 Candidate for president for the Libertarian party.

It was quite well-attended. The room was full, and apparently there was an overflow room downstairs where people could watch the live broadcast. The Institute streamed the event through the computer, also, I believe (and we were told there would certainly be videos posted sometime soon).

During the afternoon break, the Institute had a photographer there who took a photo of each of us who desired to with Dr. Paul, and then with Andrew Napolitano. We were advised we’d be sent a link with the photos that we can have for free. I’ll post them here when I get them, if they turn out decently.

Of course, there were tons of books and we were able to have the writers autograph them, if we wished. My house has a dozen new books tonight, added to the big stacks of other books we’ll get to someday. Judge Napolitano had his new book there, which will be officially released on November 18, called “Suicide Pact”, which is about the troubling results of Presidential overreach.

Something interesting that happened that might interest IPR readers: there was a survey we were asked to fill in at registration to indicate the philosophy of government closest to our personal belief. The choices were Anarcho-capitalist, Minarchist, Libertarian, Classical liberal/conservative, Moderate/independent, Progressive/liberal, or Other. The results were a bit surprising to me. Apparently the vast majority of people checked Anarcho/capitalist! This was a room full of people who most likely had some money because the fee itself was a little high, and also we learned many people had traveled here from other states. The next most common category was Libertarian, and I don’t quite recall the order of the others, except that no one had checked Progressive/liberal.

I spoke with Ron Paul for a short time (he was quite in demand, unsurprisingly), and I was lucky enough to spend some time visiting with Carol Wells Paul (Ron’s wife). I found her to be absolutely delightful! She’s from the same community as my husband, and apparently Alan’s mother was the art teacher for their granddaughter at one point. Alan had met them both before because he’s been a Libertarian forever, but I hadn’t met either one. I had heard Ron speak once before in the spring in 2012 at UCLA, along with some other 8,000 to 10,000 people.

Judge Napolitano was quite an engaging speaker, which brings me to the main reason I’ve written this article (and the tie-in to third parties). When the event was over, he sat down to sign someone’s book, and I waited and asked if I could ask him a question. I introduced myself and told him I wrote for a third-party blog, and that his name came up often as far as possibly running for office. So, I asked him: “Do you have any interest in running for office?” And his answer was–I wrote it down so I could report it exactly–

“Probably not–I’d like to see Rand Paul elected.”

So, there you have it!