Posted on 11/14/2002 10:23:51 AM PST by arual
America's Libertarian Party services only one purpose: Distracting and confusing the determined combatants in all our critical national struggles. Consider the preposterous Libertarian role in the just concluded midterm elections. South Dakota represented ground zero in the struggle for control of the Senate, and Republican John Thune and incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson fought to a virtual tie--with only 527 votes (less than 0.2 percent of the vote) dividing them. Meanwhile, 3,071 votes went to Libertarian Kurt Evans, a 32-year-old teacher who listed as one of his prime preparations for the Senate that his father is a known Country & Western musician.
Not all the purists and odd balls who vote Libertarian are actually conservative, but polls show that most of them are--and that most such voters would, if pressed, prefer Republicans over Democrats. Imagine if a third--only one third!--of Kurt Evans' voters had thought seriously enough about the importance of the election to cast their votes for Republican Thune. Would the fact that the Libertarian received 2,000 votes instead of 3,000 have detracted in any way from the "success" or impact of his campaign--or somehow compromised its metaphysical meaning? Yet the shift of that thousand votes to a real, grown-up, candidate could have altered U.S. political history.
Unfortunately, South Dakota wasn't the only state where the self-indulgent madness of Libertarian jokesters interfered with the serious business of politics. In the Alabama governor's race, another virtual tie between Republicans and Democrats, the Libertarian nominee drew 23,242 lost souls (2 percent) to his campaign--more than seven times the margin between the two serious candidates. In Oregon's contest for governor, the gap between the Democrat and Republican stood at 33,437 votes (2.73 percent) in unofficial counts, while the Libertarian jester, Thomas B. Cox, drew 56,141 votes (almost 5 percent). Mr. Cox, by the way, listed among his spotty qualifications for the governorship his "five years on the Math Team in grades 8-12."
This might all be amusing were it not so irresponsible. Libertarians win no races of any significance anywhere in the United States. The Pathetic Party's press release acknowledged that they "emerged from Election 2002 with decidedly mixed results," boasting that "Bob Dempsey was re-elected as San Miguel County coroner" (in Colorado) and "in California, Eric Lund was elected to the Cordova Recreation and Park Board."
Despite such glittering triumphs, the party's national standing continues its relentless (and richly deserved) decline. The Libertarians reached their feeble high water mark more than 20 years ago, when Ed Clark won 1.06 percent of the vote in his race for the Presidency (against Ronald Reagan). More recently, Harry Browne scored less than half that percentage (0.5 percent) in 1996, and then fared even worse (0.37 percent) in 2000. The Libertarians claim they are influencing the debate, but how can you honestly believe you are succeeding in your cause when you win no important victories and your vote totals only decline?
Harry Clowne and other Losertarian ideologues insist that their ceaseless, useless campaigning will magically, miraculously push Republicans (and/or Democrats) in the direction of libertarian ideas, but this forlorn hope rests on shakier evidence than faith in the Tooth Fairy. It ought to be obvious that you can only change a major party by participating in it and joining its internal struggles, and that you can't influence a political organization by walking away from it. There is simply no historical evidence to support the idiotic cliché claiming that third parties influence the nation by forcing the major parties to adopt their ideas. Populists only managed to take over the Democratic Party when they dropped their independent campaigning and decided to hitch a ride on the donkey; Socialists remained a suspect fringe operation until they, too, made common cause with the Democrats during the crisis of the Great Depression.
The appalling record of Libertarian electoral rejection doesn't mean that libertarian ideas are worthless--in fact, those values and innovations significantly can enrich our political dialogue if promoted in the appropriate manner. Ron Paul a one-time Republican representative from Texas, Libertarian presidential candidate in 1988, got the right idea after his frustrating race (0.47 percent of the vote) when he re-joined the Republicans, ran for Congress, and won his seat back--playing a courageous and constructive role representing his Texas district.
The refusal by other Libertarians to follow this successful example represents a demented eccentricity that condemns them to life on the political fringe. Isn't it obvious that, in today's political world, an outsider candidate stands a better chance of capturing a major party nomination through the primary process, than building a third party movement from scratch to beat the two established parties? Obviously, challenging the establishment in a primary requires less money, and a smaller base of support, than building a new political apparatus to win a general election. Insurgents and outsiders win party primaries all the time--as Bill Simon proved in California, defeating the anointed gubernatorial candidate of the GOP establishment.
And even when they don't win, primary challengers often play a significant role. When Pat Buchanan ran for the Republican Presidential nomination (twice), he made some serious noise and exerted a powerful influence on his party; when, on the other hand, he abandoned the GOP and sought the White House as the nominee of the Reform Party he became a painful (and ultimately irrelevant) embarrassment. Libertarians who seek to advance their challenging agenda will meet with far greater success within the two party system than they have achieved in all their weary decades of wandering in the fringe faction wilderness.
Dante is generally credited with the statement that "the hottest circles in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." In the wake of the recent elections, we should reserve some space in those inflammatory precincts for those who in time of moral crisis--and hand-to-hand political combat--cast meaningless votes for Losertarians.
—Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated, daily radio talk show focusing on the intersection of politics and pop culture. He is also a well-known film critic.
We are in agreement here. I don't subscribe to everything in the LP platform (e.g. open borders and strict isolationism), but since Republicans have been unable or unwilling to shrink the size and power of government at all, I can understand why many people get frustrated and vote Libertarian. I haven't given up on the GOP yet and still vote for them in elections that are potentially close. Hopefully the RLC can gain support within the party and move them towards more consistently supporting limited government.
And you probably don't understand what a paleo-libertarian is.
As for knowing about Buchanan, I was heaping scorn on Taliban Pat probably before you even knew he existed.
The difference between Past and paleo-cons is that paleo-cons enjoy at least some shred of respectability.
Oddly enough, I've never met any of those types.
talk about "picking stronger candidates"!!! Hahaha...oh, my sides.
And I don't recall hearing any of them blame the other party voters for their losses. Somewhere along the line, people began casting votes for who they thought would win instead of who they thought should
Must be a full moon tonight because Deb is out!
Well, thank you for your support. I will call you a libertarian, then.
The problem is that Libertarians do support limited government and Republicans too often do not.
It does, however, advocate curtailing billions and billions in foreign aid payments.
And I'll bet that we could lower taxes if we did that.
I am.
In principle, anyway. In practice, I've never smoked a joint or laid a tart, but I strongly believe that those who enjoy these things should be permitted to. Then again, I almost always vote a straight Republican ticket, so maybe I don't qualify as "Libertarian".
So what are the statist Republicans to do? On the one hand they can't stand that the tent is big enough to include me, and desperately want to kick me out of it. On the other hand, they can't stand not having my vote, as evidenced by their tantrum over 3000 (unobtainable) votes in South Dakota. And they can't just kill me, because then I'll vote Democratic.
I guess they'll just continue to vent on the Internet.
I wouldn't do it easily, but I don't think it would be so bad.
A friend of mine has a cabin up in the Sierra that has none of that. You shower outside from a 55 gallon drum that he's painted black to collect the heat from the sun. There is no phone or any running water. You use the outhouse when you need to go.
Compared to the quality of life in San Jose, it isn't bad at all.
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