At the Republican National Convention, while Sen. Joe Lieberman yukked it up about the absurdity of a pro-war, Keynesian Democrat like him hanging out with a bunch of pro-war, Keynesian Republicans, an authentically conservative convention was being held simultaneously only a few miles away.

The event was Rep. Ron Paul’s Rally for the Republic. Paul ran a contrarian campaign for the Republican nomination this year on a platform of individual liberty, a foreign policy of non-interventionism, a gold-backed monetary system, and a return to constitutional government. That message brought 12,000 libertarians, constitutionalists, hippies, Burkeans, pot-smokers, gun-owners, homeschoolers, anarchists and me to fill up the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis for a celebration of that one thing we could all agree on: that we each have the inalienable right to live however we want.

It would be hard to find a more striking contrast between Paul’s convention and the RNC. The latter was never anything more than a rehearsed recitation of talking points impressive only for their monumental vapidity.

Conversely, the Rally for the Republic was one big cauldron of good-natured disagreement. And its audience was remarkably informed — the mere mention of “the Austrian theory of the business cycle” led to an eruption of applause. The loudest boos came not from vague allusions to the opposition but from any mention of the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, the most substantive thing to come out of the RNC was Gov. Sarah Palin’s distinction between a hockey mom and a pit bull.

The culmination of the day was Ron Paul’s speech. It was nothing I hadn’t heard before — but what made this such a powerful event was the audience, the 12,000 people who burst into applause as Paul took the stage.

For years, libertarians have tried to construct a coherent movement to fight for their ideals. They created the Libertarian Party, which today exists only as a parody of itself. Attempts to form an alliance with the anti-war left during the 1960s and the Buchananite right during the 1990s came to nothing.

But now with the emergence of Ron Paul, a tangible movement is taking shape. It is not like the cult of personality that surrounds Barack Obama; it is a movement based not on the man himself but on the principles for which he stands.

The so-called “American Century” belonged to the likes of John McCain and Barack Obama — collectivist politicians eager to extend the coercive arm of government into every nook and cranny both at home and abroad. Yet the American spirit belongs to Ron Paul and his supporters.

Theirs is the “don’t-tread-on-me populism” of the Founding Fathers, of Robert Taft and Sinclair Lewis and the America First Committee.

They are the true heirs of John McCain’s slogan, “country first:” they are the ones who would rather focus on South Dakota than South Ossetia. They are more concerned with Main Street than the Green Zone, but they do this as neighbors, not masters.

Their message is simple: come home, America. They are begging the country in general and the Republicans in particular to reject the philosophy of death and taxes that defined the 20th century and to allow for the traditional American philosophy of freedom and community to define the 21st.

After the hundred years of statism that began with William McKinley and culminated with George W. Bush, it is easy to be pessimistic. But coming out of the Target Center, I plainly saw that the flame of liberty has been dimmed but not extinguished. Perhaps Ron Paul and his supporters still have a fighting chance.

Kelse Moen is a College senior from Sharon, Mass. He is president of the College Republicans.