The Socialist Democrats were the ones who stopped this, though. Fact is, the politicians will follow the votes. But the GOP Congress of 1994-1996 was quite bold in slowing and stopping programs. They were effective enought they forced Clinton to go from trying to be LBJ Jr to saying 'the era of big government is over'.
Conservative REPUBLICANS did that. Libertarians are about 218 seats away from having any impact.
We have a chance for a conservative/libertarian/moderate center-right COALITION to reduce Government and move in the right direction (eg Bush *is* proposing flexibility in Soc Sec program, he *is* proposing making tax cuts permanent etc., these are issues for 2003 and 2004, if Dems own either House of Congress, its DOA). Or we can splinter and let the left/Socialists run the show.
Frankly far too many Libertarians and Conservatives lack the imagination of the leftists. The Leftists understand that there are MANY avenues to gaining and exercising power - the vote IS JUST ONE OF THEM. NARAL, NOW, ACLU - you dont see them getting upset over Democrats that only 80% follow their path. why? because the leftist special interests have many other means - intimidiation, agitprop, press releases, marches, media PR, the campus, etc. - to advance their agenda and their ideas.
Deep down this is about winning the hearts and minds of the citizenry. Nothing more nothing less. A pro-freedom voting public will do the right thing, a complacent socialist voting public will vote for the socialists.
Libertarians should quit focussing so much energy on the pointless pursuit of minor losing candidates who only split the pro-freedom vote, since most pro-freedom votes are Republican votes. USE FOCUSSED POLITICAL ACTION AND DIRECT LOBBYING TO ACHIEVE YOUR END. In other words: 1. Vote Republican, 2. Get organizaed as a bloc and TELL THE REPUBLICAN WAHT TO DO. If you vote for him/her, you *own* him or her. Really Libertarians need to cultivate WINNING ADVOCATS FOR FREEDOM. IMHO, the RLC is doing 10 times more good than the LP since they use this far more successful strategy.
The LP has been here since 1973 and has had 3 decades of irrelevency to show for it. As long as you vote for people WHO DONT WIN, YOU HAVE NO VOICE IN THE HALLS OF POWER.
So of course the smart thing is to use the many other means, like freeper-style activism and ideological warfare to oppose the Democrats and Socialists who are the real enemies of freedom in our country today.