"The problem with (l)ibertarians is that they want to go back to the time when we had a very small federal government."
The very size government our Founders wanted. You have a problem with that?
An excerpt from a debate I participated in over 20 years ago:
..."Libertarians within an existing party could work to not only influence, but eventually convert the entire party to a libertarian perspective and program."
This argument underestimates the intelligence and the political skills of the current leadership of any party libertarians might join. These men are acquainted with libertarian thought; they are not ignorant of the ideas we profess and the kinds of policies we would like to see instituted - they simply believe otherwise - they oppose us, and they would charge libertarians within their party who attempted to change that party with subversion - and they would be right. A party so enfeebled as to be taken over in this manner would be an empty prize.
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Twenty years down the road, I'll settle for a reasonably sympathetic party, which in Canada is the Conservatives. I'm not so sure about your Republicans.