Posted on 01/19/2005 2:26:10 PM PST by ReganRevolutionary
Until you experience the exhilaration of winning or pain of losing a real election, either as a candidate or as a full time dedicated campaign worker you can't really appreciate the value of winning.
Looks like Bludorn has decided he wants to actually win an election.
Welcome to FR, RR.
What's an LPer?
L
Is that code for........ Leper??
Ought to be worth watching
Someone who posts at Liberty Post.
I've often said that the best hope for libertarians was to work within the GOP structure, building a power base, and using that power base to influence the party as a whole. The LP allows them to posture and preen, but is largely ineffective outside of the occasional "spoiler" candidate.
I hope not. The LP has an enormous potential once it returns to its radical origin. The failure of the so called "quick win" strategies based on abandoning its original educational purpose in favor of vote stealing from conservatives Republicans, has resulted in a loss for both Libertarians as well as conservative Republicans. Merging the LP and the Republican Party is not going to happen. Advocating such, only encourages the LP members to continue playing the conservative card, to the detriment of all.
It would however be helpful to both, if those Libertarian Party members who view the Republican Party as a better choice than the Democratic Party in the absence of the Libertarian Party, would just quit the Libertarian Party.
...GOP is going to be the majority party for a long time.
On this I agree. The sooner LP members recognize this truth, as well as the fact that most Americans are not libertarian, the sooner they might get their heads out of the clouds and stop chasing disenfranchised republican votes. Such a change would be advantageous to all.
Agreed. Let's also ditch the idea of "born libertarians".
Individual rights is a two sided idea. As the LP's principle of living your life as you choose, also holds the proviso of not interfering with others to live their lives as they choose. Infants, babies, small children, have no respect for other peoples rights, and thereby cannot be libertarian.
But when I force them to listen to me by holding a gun on them, or holding my hand in their pocket, that has crossed the line. Thus voluntary interference and voluntary government is the libertarian alternative to involuntary interference and involuntary government.
Voluntary government means the ability to vote with your feet to move from one local government to another. It means that the extended family, the church, the profesional association, the Boy Scouts can impose "rules" that apply to its voluntary members who exercise the freedom to associate (or not associate) with whomever they choose.
Illinois RLC
I could agree with you up to here. To me, government and involuntary go together. A libertarian government strives to only respond to initiations of force, and never initiate force itself.
But it does then use force, not persuasion. When it moves against criminals or enemies, the libertarian government exercises power against their will and desires.
I would say that it depends on how it was used. The way I used "interfering" was the same as using force. Just prior to writing this reply I looked the word up in several dictionaries. There are a number of different definition in all the dictionaries I looked it up in. Both our definitions are correct in every one of them. I thus stand by my use of the word "interfering."
While I consider myself to be a libertarian-Republican, I certainly am glad that I can vote Libertarian in the absence of an exceptable Republican candidate. I would certainly hate it if the only choice were between a neo-con Republican and a liberal Democrat.
I hate having little to no choice on opting out of social security, the income tax, local zoning laws, and occupational license requirements. Being able to vote for a Libertarian Party candidate is the least of my concerns. And I am a supporter of the Libertarian Party, and usually vote for it when I can, no matter how exceptionally good the Republican or Democratic Party candidates are.
Great, we'll get 36% of the vote instead of the normal 36% of the vote.
Ahhhhhh...if only the entire Republican party could be taken over by conservative Libertarians...
One can dream, right?
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