Libertarian Virginia Postrel Tells Libertarian Party to "Go Away"

Barry Goldwater tried it in the Republican party and failed. Reagan did it in the Republican party and succeeded. Back when the Demcocratic party was still dominated by Conservatives, Reagan was a Democrat. But he saw the liberals were well on theway to total control of the Democrats, so he became a Republican and took that party away from the Jerry Fords and other left leaning Republicans.

This is a good post. Thanks. And, yes, I'm a libertarian.

RE #5

There is a group of people in this forum who believe that the unwavering loyalty to one party is the key to advance Conservative causes. But their politicians and leaders constantly play only tactical game to win the next election, moving further away from the ultimate objective. They are not tactical retreats because they have no plan to coming back in double-step later. They just try to squeeze themselves between goal posts which are moving to the left gradually. They say if they win majority, they could reverse it. But unless grassroots demand it, they are happy to stay wherever they are and enjoy benefits of holders of power. They will not embark on moving goal posts to the right for fear that they may rock the boat and make people(media) uncomfortable.

Moving the goal posts to the right can only be done by outside organizations. We need a lot of media outlets fair to us and restore the balance of academia. Republican party is only one of the puzzles, even if it is a rather big piece. Forget the party. Their goals are short-term, relatively speaking. The outside grassroots are the ones who can move the goal posts. We do not want the situation to deteriorate from "Compassionate Republicans" to "Compassionate Compassionate Republicans", ..., etc. At the limit, Pubbies will be not different from Democratic Leadership Council. Some people have the erroneous impression that history does progress to the left and since this is 21st centry, we should be more warm and fuzzy and go more to the left to give soccer-moms more goodies to make them not scared. If that was the case, we should have been right to become socialists/communists back in 60's. After all, history was believed to be in that direction at the time. Don't pay attention to party hacks. They are like football players. To them, win is a win wherever it leads to eventually. They are not being practical. They are being expedient.

It is ironic that the only large group who committed themselves to brining this long-term rightward shift is Unfication Church, "Moonies". If Moonies were left-wing in their theology, despite their suspect theology and strong control of followers, they would not attract as much attention. The reason the lefties go ballistic upon Moonies is that Moonies are doing something ominous to them. They have holding company which holds control over many conservative publications, Washington Times, Reason, etc. These guys are trying to move the goal posts to the right. Why is it that, a guy, Sun-Myong Moon, who was born in the town not far from Kim Il-Sung's hometown, who may only speak rudimentary English is the only one interested in this ? I know many individuals are interested in long-term perspective but none of any significant organizations throws weight behind it. It is rather depressing that it took a leftie defector like Horrowitz to call attention to moving the goal posts. Conservatives are really more ignorant of their enemies than liberals. In that sense, many conservatives are like battered-spouses. You just endure, hoping that enemies will all repent or are gone as long as you do the right thing. Does not work that way. It is not enough to do the right thing. You have to know your enemy and turn their tactics against enemies adn fight. Dead gentlemen are of no use in political change if all of them are gone and subdued.

Lenin incoporated Clausewicz into communist movement, I hear. Leftwing politics are all indebted to him in this respect. Maybe we incoporate more than just Clausewicz. We can incporate Sun-Tzu and other strategists. And modern strategies. Apply them into politics. Also we have better handle on internet technologies. Use them to our advantage. We could use some of their pet strategies. Create underground organization outside campus. Teach kids who are interested in. Teach them all flaws of left-wing ideology. This was the favorite tactics of Marxists. they set up underground unions in the factories and set up underground cells in many organizations. This is originally a Christian invention: all those underground churches in the Roman Empire, the catacomb churches and dining room churches.

One of our main objectives is to convince liberals and their unsuspecting followers that liberals are actually stupid, not smart. Liberals pride themselves in being smart enlightened intellectuals. The victory will come when they do not feel deep down that they are really smart. Make them fall into a pit dug by conservative "morons". And let the world know it using more media reach. We have to use their unwarranted arrogance to our advantage. They think they are smart and we are dumb. So we play dumb. We pretend we are bumbling all the time. They will be very complacent and expose their weakness. When they foolishly exposed their weaknesses, we let them continue as long as possible. Then go to offense. It is the simple strategy but it is one of the best strategy. Many liberals self-worth are tied to their illusion that they are smarter than right-wing "morons". If we shake this core belief, we are in good shape.

Isn't there a difference between realizing that one group cannot or should not try controlling vices of others and actually advocating those vices?

Libertarianism is a political philosophy in search of a much better quality of human behavior--across the board--than it typically attracts.

Shallow-thinking but well-meaning conservatives who fancy themselves libertarians often protest in one breath that they abhor dope, porn, sodomy and gay marriage but in the next breath complain that their party seems fated to attract "kooks" including dopers, pornographers and porn-lovers, and sexual perverts seeking open social acceptance of their perversions.

They find this baffling. I find it amusing.

If one were to awake one morning to find the foundation and walls of one's home infested with dung beetles, one would be wise to query what materials the builder had used in their construction. A libertarian would never do this. A libertarian would just "know" that his home is built of the finest, most enduring, sweet-smelling, and indigestible materials and conclude that the dung beetles are misguided and mistaken.

There is a difference detest and ban.

ya know, I just can't stand curry (the spice of course), and the smell of it really does take away my appetite.

Should I lead the fight to ban that spice?

Libertarianism as a political ideology has a lot of things going for it. The LP is not one of those things.

Uh-huh.

"If one were to awake one morning to find the foundation and walls of one's home infested with dung beetles, one would be wise to query what materials the builder had used in their construction."

Yep. And all the logical implications of that bid me never to vote Republican (except of course when the only other candidate is a Democrat.)

Very very interesting. I'll not say I agree with you, but your eyes are every bit as open as I believe mine to be. Over all, I am quite impressed. I'll re-read this later tonight after I get home from work. For now, your reply earns one big bump.

B U M P

KC: Libertarianism is a political philosophy in search of a much better quality of human behavior--across the board--than it typically attracts.

Shallow-thinking but well-meaning conservatives who fancy themselves libertarians often protest in one breath that they abhor dope, porn, sodomy and gay marriage but in the next breath complain that their party seems fated to attract "kooks" including dopers, pornographers and porn-lovers, and sexual perverts seeking open social acceptance of their perversions.

This is the same non-sense that libertarians hear from liberals who are frightened of libertarians because we tolerate guns, cigarettes, home schoolers, and bigotted red-necks.

But in fact the purity of libertarian ideas filters out dopers and sodomites from the left at about the same rates that it filters out gun nuts and racists from the right.

Unfortunately, dopers and sodomites don't like the libertarian ideas of no welfare and no affirmative action any more than conservative gun nuts like the libertarian idea of allowing hard working Mexicans to compete against their fat asses in the labor market.

Although it angers Virginia Postrel, we are fortunate that there have always been enough libertarian purists around (like Murray Rothbard) to teach nearly every doper AND red-neck bigot out there that starts calling himself a "libertarian" that in order to get their private dope and private whites only drinking fountains, they must cease their warfare against each other.

This usually frightens most of them off.

I've been a voting delegate to several Libertarian AND Republican state and county conventions over the years. The cultural demographics have always been about the same allowing for some skew at some of the lighter attended conventions for BOTH parties. I've seen more big money pornographers at Republican conventions. Look at the cultural demographics of libertarian writers, academics, etc.

Unfortunately most dopers and sodomites seem to still be non-libertarian Democrats and most gun nuts seem to still be non-libertarian Republicans.

And here's a little fact that will really frighten KC: Did you know that with as few as 2 or 3 hundred delegates you can take over many of your state Republican (or Democrat) party conventions? You might need 4 or 5 hundred if the machine gets wind of it and counter-organizes.

I believe that would be a bad idea.Republicans, despite all of their protests to the contrary, are still only a lighter shade of liberal. Government is entirely too large and the Republicans have not been willing or able to reduce it to reasonable levels.I believe libertarian minded people need a party of their own.

I took that position for many years. After 9/11, however, the Libertarian Party came out in favor of what amounts to appeasement. This surprised me greatly, since libertarians generally agree that defense should be one of the top priorities of government. The Libertarian Party's proposed policy would be an absolute disaster, and I cannot support any party which takes such a stand. Moreover, I believe that such a stand is a complete betrayal of libertarianism both in theory (as I've already said) and in practice (because a world with a powerful Islamic fundamentalist terrorist movement would not be very friendly to freedom, either in the U.S. or abroad).

There is much truth in what you say about the current Republican Party. However, much of what you object to reflects, for better or worse, the majority view of the American public. As (or if) public sentiment changes, the politicians will follow.

In any case, I see no alternative. There are no other libertarian-oriented parties of any import. A libertarian philosophy already has significant influence in the GOP. And there's always been an argument that participation in the two-party system represents one's best chance for success; now that there are no other options, let's try it out.

I'd be thrilled to have us move towards our Constitutional roots, myself.

Shhhhhh. You're just going to upset people with that kind of talk.

You know the candy machines are right around the corner. Snickers?

...they [the Libertarian Party] have a foreign policy that amounts to defending America on the beaches of Santa Monica.

What?! I've never heard such an outlandish idea! If the LP is for defending Santa Monica, then it's definitely lost my support.

BRAVO ! Well stated, well thought out, and excellent points.

You will never get the FR Libertarians to believe / agree with any of it though. LOL

I guarantee you that most Americans have absolutely no idea about the LP view on defense. None. They do know that they are liberal in the are of drug posession/use.

Do you really think the LP could start winning elections through the expedient of hiding important policy positions that would be reviled by the vast majority of the public?

The Libertarian Party could never succeed by presenting themselves as the drug legalization party, focusing on that one issue. What would be the point in doing that? Taking steps in that direction can be a side issue, but libertarians must focus on those issues which truly affect the lives of positive, constructive people today. (And the LP never seems to be willing to consider taking one step at a time towards anything, even though that's the only way changes are made in a society that most people are basically happy with.)

An LP foreign policy of appeasement would be an utter disaster. The Libertarian Party has thrown away any chance it had of being taken seriously. It has relegated itself to being a fund-raising enterprise feeding off of disenchanted malcontents. (And I think they'll find that there are precious few of those in the U.S.A.)

Exactly so !

I don't think I've read the word sodomy more than I've read it here. What's the hang up?

I don't do it so I don't think about it. But you mention it almost every post.

Projection? Or just some notion of knowing what's best for us.

Should we cease to think and bow down to your superior judgement or just send you a check?

Idealogue?

He do focus on the sodomy, don't he?

Normally I wouldn't care but it seems like there's a fundamentalist conservative movement here that stakes it's claim on sodomy.

And to be honest I don't think about it. Ever.

And yet certain people have to bring it up every time they discuss politics.

So it makes me wonder if maybe a little "housekeeping" is in order. Know what I mean?

I'm straight and I focus on sodomy often. But that's cause I know what the word really means. My girl and I practice sodomy often.:)

I just don't worry about it in a political sense.s

In that case a definition is in order. I'd hate to miss out on the fun.