The quote was either a direct statement or paraphrase of Butler's "There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights."

But that Paul had the nerve to mention Butler in a positive way was a great, if obscure and possibly easy to overinterpret, sign for those who love Paul for his tendencies toward reining in America's tendencies toward war.

Butler, himself a highly honored major general in the Marine Corps, is author of an incendiary tract called War is a Racket in 1935, beloved of antiwar folk ever since. Christopher Coyne summed it up for us here at Reason nicely back in 2012:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."