That's how I see it. Besides, libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a real political movement. It has great points, but its Achilles heel is human nature.
Posted on 05/17/2005 6:15:46 AM PDT by sawdust
Pat Buchanan speaks of American conservatism in the past tense. "The conservative movement has passed into history," says the one-time White House aide, three-time presidential candidate, commentator and magazine publisher. "It doesn't exist anymore as a unifying force," he says in an interview with The Washington Times. "There are still a lot of people who are conservative, but the movement is now broken up, crumbled, dismantled." Mr. Buchanan, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, says conservatism "is at war with itself over foreign policy, over deficit hawks versus supply-siders." Unnamed phonies, he suggests, have infiltrated the movement. There are "a lot of people who call themselves conservative but who, on many issues, I just don't consider as conservative. They are big-government people."
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Rhino's are what is hurting the party right now, no backbones in some of these guys.
I’m getting tired of coming to FR and seeing the same anti-capitalist anti-moral rhetoric I see spewed at DU. Can anyone point me to a pro-Republican forum? I'm starting to think my money and opinion are unwelcome at the home of "Freerepublic(I Hate Bush).com" WTF?
Is that all you've got, more silly innuendo?
What are you doing here, this is a conservative forum?
If they were really conservatives, they would be distinguishable from the commie left wing authoritarians in practice.
Well said. I might also add that it also stretches the the definition of libertarianism, which has nothing to do with conservatism. There are however a good many libertarian conservatives as there are also a good many libertarian liberals. There are both libertarian republicans and libertarian democrats.
and Libertarians are not conservatives.... but i agree the Contitutional Party seems to be - mostly.
I agree, too, although some Libertarians are conservatives just as you will find some Democrats who are conservatives that have reasons for supporting their party.
The Constitution Party and and the Libertarian party share common ground on the limited role of the federal government in many respects, primarily that the Constitution limits the scope of federal power. In the sense that the Constitution and Libertarian parties both advocate that the restoration of the reserved powers of the states and the people (see Amendments IX and X), both are conservative. I think that hubbubhubbub was referring to their views on limited federal government.
The Republican leadership has proven to be liberal in this regard as they no longer have the excuse of Democrats controlling the Senate, U.S. House, or White House.
Those two words have not lost any of their prior meaning. Other than a small minority of highly influential opportunists who enjoy manipulating peoples values and priorities, most adherents to those two words who describe themselves as being one of them, usually very well know what the words mean. It is usually their opponents who confuse the meaning the word.
Generally speaking, conservatives and liberals are a small minority of the population who have a lot more in common with each other than they realize or are willing to see. It is the wrong perceptions they have of each other, and different priorities, that most often set them apart.
I agree that "Libertarians are not conservatives.... but... the Constitutional Party seems to be - mostly." That is if you are speaking of most libertarians. On the other hand a good many libertarians are quite conservative.
This is not true. Every libertarian think tank that I have ever heard of is favorably represented with in the LP. The LP gets almost all its guidance either directly or indirectly from the many small "l" libertarian (as you call them) organizations and publications. The only small "l" libertarians who reject LP positions ("thought") to any significant degree are extreme anarcho "voluntarists" who reject all group organized activities (including all political parties) on principle as being collectivistic, choosing the Aquarian Conspiracy model of independent action instead. For similar reasons, Randians also significantly reject LP "thought."
The fact that most libertarians reject the LP has nothing to do with LP thought. The rejection of the LP by libertarians at this time is mostly based upon priorities and political strategies. Thus most mainstream libertarians can be found as either Democrats or Republicans.
Among libertarians, there can be found "some," very few, who would support larger government to oppose illegal immigration. The standard popular position has always been in favor of open (or free) immigration. Your use of the word "some" breezes past the commonly understood position that the whole of the movement has historically taken and still takes today.
Even if the LP were to adopt an interim measure endorsing stronger government controls over immigration, the libertarian movement would still be strongly a proponent of open immigration. It has invested far to much in studies and literature to just suddenly switch because its stand is not popular or endorsed by the LP. Open immigration is almost a defining point among libertarians and is soundly based on principle, which libertarians are not going to abandon because its unpopular.
You are quite right about the Constitution Party and very wrong about the Libertarian Party. The LP takes a very clear stand against "restoration of the reserved powers of the states." Who ever has fed you this line of crap is either a liar, or is so all ill informed that they are not much better than one.
Starting with just the basics, the very short Libertarian Party Statement of Principles, should be enough to clear up the matter. Where it says "we... deny the right of any government..." it means national, state or local. But if needed, a close examination of the LP platform will more than dispel this notion. The Libertarian Party is not a constitution party of any sort what so ever, nor is it a conservative party.
That's how I see it. Besides, libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a real political movement. It has great points, but its Achilles heel is human nature.
A big bump for Pat... right on the mark as usual.
Of course libertarianism is a philosophy and not a movement by definition. But as to the libertarian movement not being a "real political movement," I would completely disagree. I can not think of a single criteria usually applied to movements that the libertarian movement has not met and surpassed. It is definitely a real political movement. If I have over looked some criteria here, please enlighten me.
As far as "its Achilles heel" being "human nature" goes, this is true of all political movements, in all stages of development. Libertarians like all movements in this regard have their own set of unique advantages and disadvantages. But as a philosophy, it is based less on visions of utopia than any other political philosophy and thereby has advantages that other philosophies do not have. It does not need to manipulate human behavior to any specific uniformities as is necessitated by all other political philosophies.
Thanks for the correction. I was going by statements that I had heard from or about Libertarians, and not the platform itself. I had read one rendition of it a few years ago, but I had not paid much attention to it since then.
Republicans have gone liberal as a party and the cheeerleaders here are blind to that.I confess to being one of the "cheerleaders" as you put it.
I recognize the truth of much of what Pat says (though I disagree with him on many issues, first and foremost, Iraq) and I do see the Repubs as a big govt party, but with a difference:
They really do want the private sector to survive (as opposed to the socialist RATs) and they really do want the US to retain a military edge (as opposed to the internationist RATS).
To me that's a big enough difference to keep working for repubs. I know to a purest like yourself, that's not enough, but hey, like the recently discovered jellyfish, we all have our 60 opinions.
As for Bush, he might not be a "true conservative" but I'll tell you what, he's a foreign policy genius who came along at just the right time to lead us against the Islamofascists. And if he gets his judges through, the country will be better-off-having-had-Bush for many decades to come.
No, I think you are confused, if you think Republicans will ever speak as one with one voice. I would prefer that Republicans take conservative positions, but I know that not all of them ever will and not all of the time, thus Republicans and "conservatism" will never be synonomous. We conservatives will always have to keep our philosophical independence, not matter what party we are alligned with. Conservatism, not party label, is always what conservatives should care more about.
As we know, anything is better than a liberal Marxist, and that is what the Democratic party is today, so we get the lesser of two evils.
But is Bush the "lesser of two eveils" fiscally? I say no.
As Constitutionalists, we need to express our OUTRAGE and demand change from Republicans who--as a party--have become extremely liberal, especially on fiscal matters.
Fiscally, George Bush has done what no Democrat has ever done with non-Defense spending. His increases in various global and domestic welfare programs, and things like the Brownfields Bill, the Farm Bill, the Medicare Bill, etc. put spending into unchartered territory even the Democrats thought we would never see.
Fiscally, Bush is not the "lesser of two evils" but has become the "greater of two evils".
Additionally, not much more needs to be said about allowing the invasion of our nation from the south and Bush refusing to fight the invaders.
Yes, the Democratic party is at war with our founding principles and they are anti-American on every issue. The problem is the Republican party has not differentiated itself, as they have become very liberal also.
Tom Tancredo is a conservative. There is not one Republican Senator that is a conservative like Tancredo is in the House. The U.S. Senate Republicans are made up of moderate wimps, along with about seven flaming liberals. Our president is a flaming liberal fiscally, and although he preaches freedom, he allows his own nation to lose its freedom by a bunch of welfare groupies from Mexico being allowed to enter at will.
This is the reality today in the Republican party and it is what all good conservatives need to know. We all should be expressing our outrage to our Congressmen and Senators.
There's got to be a way to fight against liberal tendencies in the Republican party without enabling RAT victories.
I don't think "expressing outrage" is good enough, but witholding support or going 3rd party is self-defeating.
What is to be done?
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