Every day, my spam in-basket receives as many as half a dozen long e-mail screeds, apparently from a bunch of Greek libertarians who revere the thoughts of one Basil Venitis, identified only with the cult-like words “the best Athenian orator”.

The delete function removes them, invariably unread, from my system in a nano-second. But America is discovering it cannot consign libertarianism to such instant oblivion, as it might have been fooled into thinking it had when the latest of Congressman Ron Paul’s many campaigns for the presidency sank, without much trace, in last year’s Republican party primaries.