Republican candidate Ron Paul spoke at Google last week. I wasn't able to go because I had a meeting conflict. However watching the Q&A in the video I was disappointed and wished I had been able to go so that I could ask questions. I'm not a US citizen so can't vote, but I feel like people can't get past the fact that Ron Paul makes sense on one issue: that the Iraq war has been a disastrous waste of life, money and opportunity and ask some perhaps more interesting questions.
For example, as a self proclaimed "champion of the constitution," why is he not seeking President Bush's impeachment? Is he, but we just haven't heard about it?
Also, many of his actual policies sound frightening, at least initially. As he goes on to explain his positions in more detail, the libertarian part of your brain realizes that what he's saying actually makes a bit of sense, but you realize that for his ideas to reach fruition a series of unlikely steps would need to take place. Many of his policies are built on the notion everyone in communities across the country thinks about every issue logically, and will take care of the details of supporting that community, and as such the federal government should step back. In many places that's true, especially on social issues that I feel the federal government only gets involved in for purely theatrical purposes. But in infrastructural areas, such as public works, education, healthcare etc, it's been proven that given the opportunity, companies will squander public trust. Basically I'm saying that the government shouldn't necessarily meddle in setting the school curriculum (other than to set some basic standards), but it should provide funding to operate them.
I have some thoughts here since even though I can't vote, I do pay taxes in the United States. I like low taxes. I like the government staying out of my affairs. But I feel like much of the politics in this country are theatrical and a waste of time. If the government would stop wasting money on foolish adventures overseas and spend it at home, maybe people living here could have a decent healthcare system like everywhere else in the western world. Just a thought.
Contrary to initial appearance, libertarian ideas tend to rely _less_ on people helping each other, not more. Libertarians expect that people generally act in their self-interest and respond to incentives. An example of this would be libertarian opposition to anti-price-gouging laws: economically, it turns out that allowing prices to spike after disasters brings in goods faster and ends up being cheaper and better overall than artificially restricting prices, and thereby supply. People wind up better off not because other people are selflessly wanting to help but because they're acting in their own self-interest.
Of course not everything works this way; market failure exists and there are times when the government should step in. Public infrastructural goods like you mention are a tricky area for libertarians because of the free rider principle, among other things. In these cases the hard-core "pure freedom at all costs" libertarians and the utilitarian libertarians butt heads. I'm not familiar enough with all Paul's policies to know which side of the line he falls on, although to non-libertarians (or non-economists) both sides appear to be wackos at first.
Realistically, the impact of having Paul as a president would be that he would veto much of what Congress passes. The executive has little direct power to overhaul the nation's entire legal framework, so people who support Ron Paul are sometimes simply people who wish to push the government to be _more_ libertarian than it is, or even just people who'd rather cause gridlock. In my view both of these are perfectly fine goals.
In any case, if you're really interested in more detail on why libertarian ideas don't, in fact, require people to join hands and help their neighbors in order to succeed, I suggest David Friedman's "The Machinery Of Freedom", a series of economic essays that make strongly libertarian arguments from a utilitarian perspective. Whether or not you end up agreeing with Friedman's arguments, he takes a look at what the actual consequences of policies like Paul's might be.