Party's new director appeals for 'second American revolution'

www.l[.org ^ | 6.3.03 | libertarian party

[Ten Megaton Solution]

The Republicans can have 90% of the Libertarian (and libertarian) vote. Just reduce the size and intrusiveness of government and abide by the Constitution.

You mean, keep their promises once they're elected? Hahaha!

Republicans only do that when they make a personal profit off it.

[Dan from Michigan]

Number of officeholders: Currently 340 Libertarians hold elective office, more than all other third parties combined.

How many are PARTISAN. Non partisan offices are an important starting point, but if they don't win PARTISAN races, they get nowhere. How many state reps? State Seantors? In Michigan, none. Congress? None.

* Number of candidates: During the 2002 election cycle, the party ran 1,642 candidates, the largest slate of third party candidates since before World War II.

That doesn't mean much. Democrats run races in Ottawa and Livingston County, Michigan. They don't win. Republicans run candidates in Detroit. They don't win.

* Number of voters: 3,424,123 people cast at least one Libertarian vote on Election Day, 2002. Libertarian House candidates have earned 1 million votes for two election cycles in a row -- making it the only party in history other than the Democrats and Republicans to have done so.

That's a nice spin job, but again, winning is what matters. How many LP candidates have broken the 33% barrier?.

* Ballot status: A Libertarian presidential candidate has appeared on all 50 state ballots for the last three election cycles. No other third party has done so twice.

That's also settling for 3rd place.

* Impact on national elections: Libertarian candidates have been credited with controlling the outcome of several gubernatorial and Senatorial elections in the past two years.

So have the greens.

I have a very strong libertarian(small l) streak on a lot of issues, but let's look at the track record. 340 officials(including non partisans) in 30+ years? My county alone gets approximately 100 Republicans elected in every single election. The only thing the Libertarian Party(as are the US Taxpayers/Constitution and Reform parties) is right now, is a haven for protest votes against a McCain type RINO. That's all it is. Greens and the Workers World parties are a protest vote against Dems not leftist enough.

To quote Top Gun. "There's no points for second place". There's no points for third either.

CAN libertarians win? It's possible, but it takes a LOT more than putting a name on the ballot and an internet campaign. It takes knocking on 20,000 doors. That's the only way the LP will get anywhere.

[JohnGalt]

You might be curious to read about Murray Rothbard (who founded the Libertarian Party) splitting from the party in 1980 because he believed it was taken over by left-libertarians.

Murray believed open borders, if a noble goal, merely allowed for the welfare state to recruit clients.

http://www.conservative.org/pressroom/revitalizingconservatism.asp

The issue has never been an ideological pacifist foriegn policy; that is the statist slander. The issues has been always: a well armed citizenry and decentralized government-- of which we have neither. War, is afterall, the largest of government welfare programs. Reactionary needs, i.e. how to respond to an attack that the state failed to prevent, of course, can be debated, but my caution to your line of thinking remains.

[RJCogburn]

Murray Rothbard (who founded the Libertarian Party) splitting from the party in 1980

I think it was David Nolan actually.

[gcruse]

'foreign policy of non-intervention and peace'

That's from the LP home page.  Pre-emption and
non-intervention would seem to be at odds.  And
a foreign policy of peace is what the Pope scores
the US for not practicing.   Peace is just the absence
of war and not, IMO, to be valued above security.

[JohnGalt]

You are correct, 'help' was the missing word from my post, which of course is subjective. Murray brought the contemporary paleo-conservative rhetoric to the party and was a key intellectual behind Ron Paul in 1988 and to some extent, Pat Buchanan in 1992.

[JohnGalt]

Yeah, and the Republican Party Platform says they will abolish the Department of Education.

If the interest is politics, the question is, is it easier to take over the GOP, the Democrats, or pursue a third party. Third Parties are a waste of time, so which national party is better suited for a take-over??

Peace is not only the abscence of war, but the presence of justice. The idea that peace and justice can be achieved by a war fought half-a-world away, is an abstract to such a disconnected end, that it cannot be called libertarian, but it can be called the militarist end of left-libertarian thought.

Most folks in my spot, have dropped libertarian, and moved on to market anarchist, or my prefered term since I am a conservative, radical localist-- if libertarian is a title you crave, fine have it; I respect that we probably agree on many issues, but we are not of the same ideology.

[gcruse]

As I wrote in Reinventing Libertaria,  the Libertarian Party as constituted
cannot coexist with the War on Terror, a war we did not initiate and must
fight to the end.  If the LP cannot adapt to border control and pre-emption,
than they are even less viable than before 9/11.  I have made the decision
not to put myself in the pockets of those out to kill us.  If that makes me
not a libertarian, so be it.  But liberty cannot be long had in a world of
terrorism.  First things first.

[DugwayDuke]

"Seehusen, 50, comes to the party with a background in business, media, and politics, and ran for U.S. Congress in 2000 from Iowa's Third District. He plans to put that experience to work building a political party large enough to "fire the government" by electing Libertarians to statehouses around the country and ultimately to governorships and Congress."

Well, it's nice to know he "ran" for Congress once. How many votes did he get? How does this "experience" qualify him for "building a political party large enough to "fire the government""?

[Ahban]

I'm a member of the Constitution Party. By one measure we claim to be the 3rd largest party in America- looking at the voter registration (in many states you must declare) we are no. 3.

[babaloo999]

The Republicans can have 90% of the Libertarian (and libertarian) vote. Just reduce the size and intrusiveness of government and abide by the Constitution

Riiiiight. What's the name of that song? Dream the Impossible Dream?

[Protagoras]

I guess if your Republican voters can be so easily led away you can't be offering them much to stay.

Or maybe they are stupid. Which is it?

[JohnGalt]

If you believe your 'liberty' (an abstraction) is best defended by a battle thousands of miles away, then I would like to see the intellectual history of libertarian writers that led you to that conclusion. I doubt it would exist. The theme on national defense that extends hundreds of years in conservative libertarian thought on national defense, is no standing army, a well-armed citizenry and a decentralized government/economy. (Think of Urban economic centers as robbing the rural country side to pay for urban cess pools and corruption, or consult the red-blue map of Bush vs Gore in the last election.)

You lose me completely to say somehow the Libertarian Party has it wrong when they suggest that first we fire all the bureaucrats before we go on another adventure in the Middle East. That seems completely rational and devoid of ideology, but your criticism is rooted only in a difference of ideology rather than a difference in tactics.

If you are speaking from a political view, i.e. making the Ls a legit third party, I layed out the faction that I come from which the Rs, Consitution Party, and the Libertarian Party compete for, but none particularly serve. (You can also see why people of my ilk would support a 'state's rights' non-ideolgical theme in national politics.) I have said in other threads that the L Party is a waste of time, and we are better served working to take over an existing party.