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.

[OWK]

Please explain to me how you live free under the laws at present.

I abide by those I consider moral, and disregard all others.

[gcruse]

I think you're right. It was repealed then,
and its Bizarro evil twin got traction when
FDR was elected.

[Ten Megaton Solution]

If the property owners of a town decide that zoning out porn shops and abortion clinics is something they want to do, an outside force does not have the right to tell them they must have porn shops and abortion clinics.

Actually, the proper libertarian thing to do if a group of citizens objects to their local topless bar or porno shop, is for them to scrape up their own money (gasp! horrors! NO! NO! Not their own money!) and buy the owner of the offending establishment out.

Otherwise, they're simply using the power of the state to enforce their veiws of morality, and are no different in principal than the Nazi that ordered the Jew shoemaker out of business.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Morality only applies to individuals. Individuals are the only creatures with a conscience. Moral pertains to personal behavior. Paradoxically morality only comes from the group. Its root meaning is "custom."

States are not judged in terms of morality except by the confused. They are amoral when we are lucky.

[f.Christian]

To: donh

dh ...

Is this like the law of legislature?

g3 ...

No, it is much better. Legislative laws can often be broken without punishment. However, no one is able ... to break scientific laws --- at all, and those who try (like those who jump out of tall buildings) are always punished.

562 posted on 05/26/2003 5:36 PM PDT by gore3000

[r9etb]

What damn fool expects libertarians to be "self-policing"? ... Libertarianism is nothing more than a minimalist imposition of government needed for a safe society.

Please consider carefully these two sentences, as they relate to one another. What is the "minimalist imposition of government" for a society whose members are not largely self-policing?

John Adams had it right: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . ... Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

[Protagoras]

I abide by those I consider moral, and disregard all others.

Hard to disregard that man with the star on his shirt when he comes at last to your property to arrest you for not complying with the ones you didn't concider moral.

[gcruse]

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

[OWK]

States are not judged in terms of morality except by the confused.

Clearly the individuals comprising state (in the case of the United States, the majority) employ action.

Those actions are most certainly subject to moral judgement.

I should think this would be obvious.

[Protagoras]

I also have to assume that you concider taxes for transfer payments moral? And therefore you don't disregard them but pay them? (I know this is not true)

[OWK]

Hard to disregard that man with the star on his shirt when he comes at last to your property to arrest you for not complying with the ones you didn't concider moral.

Discretion is the better part of valour.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The 10th amendment allowed treason? News to me.

[r9etb]

And your quip is a shining example of why freepers will forever marginialized as a group of intolerant and unpleasant jack-booted thugs, who appear deterimined to negate any conservative advances.

How pleasant of you to prove my contention. Apparently neither you nor OWK are content to tolerate disagreement.

OWK decides that my belief in "the public interest" makes me a protoge of Marx and Engels.

And you decide I'm a jack-booted thug -- for what reason, I cannot tell.

If I am to judge libertarians by you two, loudmouthed and unpleasant are pretty mild descriptions....

[OWK]

I also have to assume that you concider taxes for transfer payments moral? And therefore you don't disregard them but pay them? (I know this is not true)

I consider all taxation to be immoral.

Particularly so when the funds stolen, are used to promulgate immoral acts.

So I seek ways to avoid participating in such things.

[laredo44]

Would you be ok with your neighbors having sex on their front lawn, in full view of the neighborhood, on what is their private property?

As long as they prevent their image from being viewable from a public thoroughfare where it would unwelcomingly accost children and some adults, I have no problem with it.

[OWK]

OWK decides that my belief in "the public interest" makes me a protoge of Marx and Engels.

To be precise, OWK indicated that your belief in "the public interest" as superior to individual rights, was what makes you a protege of Marx and Engels.

And I stand by that indication.

[justshutupandtakeit]

States for the most part got out of the morality business after the Pharoahs fell. While the Roman Emperor was technically divine no one took it seriously.

Islam still has "morals" controlling states.

States have another standard: efficiency. Generally they cannot be efficient if they ignore the needs of the population. See Machiavelli.

[r9etb]

And I stand by that indication.

Yes, you do. Which is precisely why your libertarian politics are not to be taken seriously.

[f.Christian]

mr ...

There is a sub-set of lunatic loons who appear to wish the ... end of American society (( link )) --- as we (( once -- 1st )) know it. Like the Nazis and the communists in Weimar Germany, they have a great deal in common as potential destroyers of the social fabric.

I have engaged in several debates in the last few days, and I admire FreeRepublic as a forum for the free expression of ideas, but the overwhelming presence of this bunch of loons is very off-putting.

Lenin is supposed to have said that capitalists would sell him the rope by which they were to be hung. The “anarcho-loons” on this forum would not bother to sell the rope but provide it as a public service.

401 posted on 05/06/2003 5:54 PM PDT by moneyrunner (I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed to its idolatries a patient knee.)

fC ...

“anarcho-loons” on this forum ... Anarcho-statist loons !

[Protagoras]

Discretion is the better part of valour.

I agree, but then you are not living free. You are just pretending to be. I agree that it makes it easier to get by.

I understand your hope, but realistically, you aren't free in any sense of the word. I can list a thousand things you cannot do which are moral, and a thousand things you must do which are immoral.