Reinventing Libertaria

The Washington Dispatch ^ | May 27, 2003 | Gary Cruse

[gcruse]

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Reinventing Libertaria

Should the Libertarian Party, a party that barely shows up on political radar as it is, be further split? Has the LP written itself out of post 9/11 America? In a country moving perceptibly to the right, does a retrenched, leftist Democratic Party open up middle ground for its own replacement to the right?

As a small 'l' libertarian, I increasingly find myself at greater odds with the LP than I am with conservatives. When social conservatism is replacing the Tenth Amendment (the powers not delegated to the United States ...are reserved to the States) with any number of Commandments, a party of individual liberty and responsibility should be highly visible. The Democratic party has been equally contemptuous of the Tenth when that party has been in power. Are the pieces there for assembling a real party of Liberty?

The Libertarian Party might be poised to make such a run, but not in its present incarnation. A couple of planks in the party platform are serious anachronisms and must be dealt with first.

Completely out of step with America today,a'foreign policy of non-intervention and peace' sticks out and resonates with recent anti-Iraqi war sentiments. Isolationism was almost a necessity when the oceans made dealing with the rest of the world more nuisance than blessing, but not any more. Anti-terrorism cannot be a winning hand without the cooperation of nations capable of harboring future Osamas. As to an announced policy of peace, let the lambs be silenced. There is an insidious, woolly-headed thinking among the naifs of society who are willing to settle for lack of conflict, for now, and call it peace, without regard to the wolfy machinations on their doorstep.

France and England had a treaty with Poland to come to each other's aid if attacked. When Germany invaded Poland, the treaty was enforced to the extent that war was declared but nothing else was done, bringing about the Phony War that allowed Hitler to gobble up someone else (it's always someone else who needs to sacrifice for the common good) while Poland's friends worked to restore the 'peace.' We used to call that appeasement, but now it's peacekeeping. The subtle shift in emphasis from defending what is worthwhile to redefining 'necessary' as 'expendable' isn't negotiating, it is surrender. Well, maybe it's negotiating. "I'll give you everything you want, but that's my final offer," might be dressed up enough to dance with, if you're that desperate.

As road maps go, expecting Israel to give up the Golan Heights, a strategic sacrifice of elephantine proportion, for useless promises of peace from those who unfailingly call for her extinction, secures a peace that passes understanding, not to mention overtaking credulity. The Libertarian Party's notion of peace is appeasement in Birkenstocks.

The other disconnect I have with the LP platform is the elimination of all restrictions on immigration, which, coming from the Libertarian Party of Texas is a 'kick me' sign I wouldn't want to wear around the Alamo. I'd still be laughing at that if I didn't know they were serious as a front yard fiesta del tercer mundo.

Can the Libertarian Party even coexist with War on Terrorism? The party platform seems singularly incapable of keeping suicide killers out of the country or doing anything pre-emptively to stop the creation of terrorist cadres not already here. The primary mandate of sovereignty is survival, a principle easily translated into libertarianism's recognition of the individual, with his full complement of rights and responsibilities. At the national level, this is vaporized without border control and amounts to shattering the individual writ large.

That's why I got the 'L' out of Libertarian in favor of raising a little 'l' of my own. Being a libertarian may be a step in the direction of conservatism, but being a Libertarian puts me in the pocket of people out to kill me.

As constituted, the LP will remain off the political radar, and small 'l'ers will agonize over how far down the ticket the silliness has to be before one can safely vote for it. So far, dog catcher is not far from the ceiling. A party rethought without these suicide clauses might do well as the major parties peel away from each other. The Republicans look to have a lock on 2004, so there's plenty of time to get a new dog ready. This one won't hunt.

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Gary Cruse is a steely-eyed photofinisher in Texas.

[justshutupandtakeit]

So states have no right to execute murderers for that would mean the public interest is superior to the individual rights of the murderer?

[68 grunt]

One Who Knows speaks for himself, and much more eloguently than I. I'm just belligerent and bellicose and muy pi$$ed at what the hypocrytes have done to FR. I've never, ever voted libertarian, but I get my jollies being unpleaant with jackbooted scum, not mentioning the stupid ones for whom understanding is a trail nor the deceitful for whom honesty is unknown.

[LizardQueen]

Well, for Helen Thomas and Michael Moore making the double backed beast, we'd put up something modest, like the Great Wall of China.

Now I'm going to be having nightmares....

LQ

[Protagoras]

So I seek ways to avoid participating in such things.

You make seek them, but you are not free even if you avoid them a certain amount of time. The very act of avoidance shows that you are not free.

You get my point, I shall not belabor it further.

[OWK]

So states have no right to execute murderers for that would mean the public interest is superior to the individual rights of the murderer?

It is not the "right of the state" which would be upheld by the execution of a murderer.

It was the rights of the victim.

State would be acting as proxy defender of said rights.

The murderer didn't violate the rights of the state.

He violated the rights of his victim.

Had the victim had the opportunity to defend his own life with lethal force, he'd have been morally jusitfied in doing so.

[Ten Megaton Solution]

The Tenth Amendment forbade the federal government from passing laws outside of those areas specifically granted to it by the Constitution. I'm no expert on the subject, and will not enter a detailed discussion on the Civil War, but the states that eventually formed the Confederacy were not fighting for the right to keep darkies in thrall. No, they were fighting against northern economic aggression.

Now, I've gone both ways on the rightness or wrongness of the Civil War, for various reasons, and will not now discuss it, but there's no denying that the Tenth Amendment became a dead letter when the war was over.

[Protagoras]

So states have no right to execute murderers

States don't have rights, they have power. People have rights.

[laredo44]

So states have no right to execute murderers for that would mean the public interest is superior to the individual rights of the murderer?

Why stop at execute? Why not ask if states have the power to imprison or fine? Each would, absent the convict's initial violation of another's rights, be a violation.

Also, states have no rights, only individuals. States have powers. Perhaps it is the continual confusion between the two that causes so much of the misunderstanding here.

[Servant of the Nine]

Most of the people in this country, including many, many here, wish me ill. Can I kill them preemptivley?

Not till they become sovereign nations.

So9

[justshutupandtakeit]

People have the right to demand the states they create execute criminals or do you not agree?

How many rights are there?

[justshutupandtakeit]

States are the incarnation of the demand to protect rights.

More rights demanded means a larger state.

[r9etb]

To be precise, OWK indicated that your belief in "the public interest" as superior to individual rights

This is not true in all cases, which is why I again repeat the phrase "untrammeled exercise of individual rights."

There are certain things that I may do, as a matter of individual right, that the public interest may nevertheless prevent me from doing.

For example, take public sex, public intoxication, and ultra-loud music in a residential area -- all perfectly within the bounds of "individual rights," and all pernicious to the public interest. The community has a definite interest in restricting these things -- do you deny the right of a community to do so?

[LittleJoe]

but those pieces do not include the formation of yet another "third" party.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties were formed after people became disgusted with the corruption and power grabs of previous parties.

The Libertarians, and others, are attempting to do the same today. There will not be a new mainstream party until a popular leader steps forward.

Look for that to happen in 2008. I don't think it will be the Libertarians, or any of the others. It will be something new, like Ross Perot tried.

[laredo44]

How many rights are there?

In my opinion, and despite Jefferson and the Constitution, just one. The right to liberty. All the others are special case of that.

[r9etb]

I get my jollies being unpleaant with jackbooted scum, not mentioning the stupid ones for whom understanding is a trail nor the deceitful for whom honesty is unknown.

Am I to presume that you're calling me names? That'll sure make me pay attention to you.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The tenth recognized the divided sovereignty which makes up federalism. States retained the power of policing, health and welfare regulations, i.e. local concerns. That did NOT include destroying the Union.

No state retained the right to do ANYTHING which would affect the Union.

Slave states fought the Civil War ENTIRELY because of their fear of losing their slaves. Every other excuse is just a lying rationalization. The North, it is true, did NOT fight to free the Slaves but to uphold the Constitutional Union.

The 10th never had much meaning and was initially put in to mollify the anti-Federalists: Slavers and Republican crooks.

It is still as relevent as ever as the differences in State legal codes show.

[Servant of the Nine]

Then if the head meets the tree without a helmet, it's the riders choice, their head, and they pay for the results on their dime. Or they don't get treatment and they die. This would be a deterrent to most, and those that wouldn't be deterred may Darwinize themselves out of the gene pool, by their own volition.

This isn't a perfect example, but I hope it makes my point.

Sounds pretty close to perfect to me.

So9

[justshutupandtakeit]

Liberty is a condition of existance not a right per se. It allows rights to be exercised.

[NittanyLion]

As is lamentably typical of the libertarian response, you're skipping over the heart of the problem here: if people are already not behaving in a moral fashion, just how is libertarianism supposed to instill in them the moral behavior that is necessary for a libertarian society to work?

On the contrary, how is authoritarianism supposed to instill moral values? Under your system there are few consequences to one's behavior; under a libertarian system the opposite is true.

What you propose, and what is largely already in place, will never serve to instill morality in people. Indeed what's encouraged is less morality - and by your logic additional government in response.

[Servant of the Nine]

What do you recommend when you say "pre-emptive"? Explain how freedom survives this.

Freedom only applies to the United States and conditionally to other democracies.
No preemption within the US.
Destruction of anyone outside the US that might in some way threaten us.

Not equal and fair?
True.

Arbitrary and Brutal?
So what?

So9