Pajamas Media

I Was a Card-Carrying Libertarian: Confessions of a Black Sheep Republican

It's hard to remain a Libertarian in the post-9/11 era, bemoans Stephen Green of Vodkapundit, who has officially stopped trying to change the world "one losing candidate at a time."

October 25, 2007 - by Stephen Green

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My grandfather would start it, every time. Discussing the news, he’d eventually get so frustrated that he’d mutter, “The only good Democrat…” and my Dad would chime in and finish, “…is a dead Democrat.” My other grandfather served as state chairman of the Republican Party, and his vanity license plates read “GOP-1.” Previously, he’d been a state senator. Republican, of course. And that’s how it was: We were Republicans. Midwestern Republicans — quiet but firm.

But deep in my heart, I knew we were wrong. I discovered the Libertarians in sixth grade, during the 1980 election, and I liked what I saw.

Our class sponsored a school-wide mock election, and my very first political act was that day giving a speech in favor of Libertarian Presidential Candidate Ed Clark. Clark won exactly two votes that day at my exclusive private elementary school. But he went on to have the best-ever (and still) showing by a Libertarian candidate. Ronald Reagan of course won, and I hid my Libertarian self deep in the closet. It was Morning in America, and I wasn’t going to miss the bandwagon. Besides, Reagan was talking about actually winning the Cold War — but the Libertarians didn’t seem all that interested in spreading liberty. It was our first falling out.

By the autumn of ‘88, I was a sophomore at the University of Missouri and decided it was time to come out of the closet. There were fliers all over campus for a meeting of college Libertarians at a local pub — what a perfect place to reveal myself to the public. And how. The local NBC affiliate showed up to interview us, all six or seven. My coming out party included a brief appearance on the ten o’clock news. After, I put a “Ron Paul for President sticker on the back of my Ford Escort, opposite the other sticker which read, “F*ck Authority,” only with all the vowels intact.

The next day, my very Republican political science professor, Rick Hardy, asked me privately, “I didn’t know we lost you.” I told him, “I’m not lost, but I am trying to nudge you guys in the right direction.” The semester before, I’d worked with Dr. Hardy on his giant mock ‘88 election, as the campaign manager for Pete DuPont. He should have known then that I was “lost,” because I’d picked for myself the most libertarian, the most hopeless, of the entire Republican field.

Being a Libertarian was hard work, but I set right at it. I even went so far as to read the entire party platform. Pro-choice? Right on! Free trade? Hell, yes! Privatize all the schools? Start with mine! Abolish that Social Security Ponzi scheme? I was never going to see a dime, anyway! Bring all our troops home from Europe and Japan and South Korea and everywhere else and close half our embassies and cut defense spending at least in half and forget about enforcing freedom of the seas? Whoa, Nelly! “But,” I rationalized, “they don’t really mean all that stuff. A Libertarian president wouldn’t be that naive.”

But come election day, I held my nose, covered my eyes and pulled the lever for George HW Bush — no easy feat with only two hands. There was still a Cold War to be won. I could be a real Libertarian — we all would be! — once the Soviets caved in.

Almost exactly a year later, that’s exactly what happened. On November 9, 1989, the people of East Berlin took hammers and chisels and even their bare hands to that Wall. Soon, the governments of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, and even Romania had fallen — mostly peacefully. The peoples of Eastern Europe had liberated themselves from Communist oppression, and at long last I was free to throw off the last shackles of my Republican heritage.

I changed my party affiliation to Libertarian, smiling all the way back from the voter registrar’s office.

I spent the ’90s as a proud, loud, and argumentative Libertarian. I subscribed to Reason magazine as soon after stumbling across it in a store rack. Then, after moving down to San Francisco where I could really let it all hang out, I started buying every new issue of the even-more subversive Liberty. If Virginia Postrel’s glossy Reason was for inside-the-think-tank policy wonks, then the pulpy Liberty was for ponytailed radicals like me, living on the very edge of the nation. Reason made you feel smart. Liberty got you angry.

We had a good ten years together. Those years probably weren’t as fun for my friends, who got an earful of Libertarian cant every time politics came up. And I made sure politics came up often.

I voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate just once, in 1996 for Harry Browne. Andre Marrou’s ‘92 campaign was uninspiring, and by 2000 it had become obvious that Browne had maybe not been entirely honest with the Party’s finances. But on every other place on the ballot, every time a candidate had an L after his name, I voted for him. I was changing the world, one losing candidate at a time.

It felt so good, so right, not to belong. Clinton’s little foreign interventions came and went, and I could scoff at them all. Why were we messing with these tiny countries of no account? Surely we had no national interests at stake. Haiti wasn’t aiming nuclear missiles at us, and Somalia wasn’t even a real country, just a spot on the map where other countries weren’t. I yawned through reports from the Kosovo War.

In 2000, I changed my party registration back to Republican for one reason, and one good Libertarian reason only: To vote against John McCain (and his statist threats of campaign finance reform) in the primary. I fully intended to switch back before the next general election.

Then we all woke up one morning to learn that airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and into the wooded hills of Pennsylvania. “Well, here’s a war even a good Libertarian like me can support.” We’d been attacked, directly, and we knew who the culprits were and where their protectors and sponsors were. We would go after them with such righteous fury that no one would dare strike New York City ever again.

Boy, was I wrong.

The angry folks at Liberty were mad at most everybody but Islamic terrorists. One even went so far as to denounce the Afghan War as “racist.” It was all imperialism this, and blowback that, and without a care in the world for protecting American lives, commerce, or, well, liberty. Then Postrel turned over Reason to Nick Gillespie, who seemed more interested in presenting libertarianism as something hip, arch, fun — and ultimately unserious. Such should have been no surprise, coming from the former editor of a magazine called Suck.

I felt abandoned, betrayed, by my comrades. By my former comrades.

If Libertarians couldn’t agree about the clear-cut case for war in Afghanistan, you can imagine how Iraq must have divided us. I had to stop reading Liberty months before my subscription finally, mercifully, ran out. Blogger friends of mine stopped emailing me. Ron Paul, whose name once graced the back of my first car, started sounding to me, less like a principled defender of American liberty, and more like a suited-up reject from the Summer of Love.

I stopped voting Libertarian for local candidates, leaving lots of blanks on my ballot. Next year, I’m not sure which party I’ll support for President, much less which candidate. From here, it looks as if the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy.

It was easy tearing up my LP membership card. It’s quite a bit harder to find something to replace it. But I know this much: There’s no going back. Maybe there’s just too little room for principle in such a violent world.

Then again, maybe leaving the Libertarians is like leaving the mob. Somewhere in the back of my mind there are echoes of Al Pacino. “Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in!”

108 Comments

dougf:

Well written posting. I enjoyed reading it.

I submit however, as you seemingly have yourself discovered, that by definition Libertarianism has always been “something hip, arch, fun - and ultimately unserious”.

It simply does not work. It’a a purely intellectual trifle. And Ron Paul is 100% wacko. I assume that he was equally wacko ‘back in the day’. Simply repeating something forcefully ad infinitum does not make that something practical or doable.

Just call yourself ‘undecided’ and vote when it really matters. Otherwise you are probably right —

Poltroons to the left of us.
Poltroons to the right of us.
Pandering inanities volleyed and thundered.

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:07 am Mike:

The establishment is running scared because Ron Paul is in third place among Republicans…

http://www.truthalert.net/Republican%20Presidential%20Candidate%20Rankings.htm

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:20 am Michael Cathcart:

I used to be so obsessed with parties much as you are. I wasn’t old enough to vote until 2004, but in 2000, I was really discovering Libertarianism, but I did give my support to George W. Bush, then in 2004 I really loved Badnarik (still do), but he was against the war and so I had to vote for the liberal George Bush. Early this year the war had started to fall into the nether regions of my mind where the mundane of non important aspects of life would sit, then I started hearing from Michael Savage and others about how we really weren’t fighting a war we had a thick 2″ book of rules and regulations for our troops and I didn’t think that was right, so I looked into it and come to find and really realize the lack of leadership Bush has provided. There are tons of rules on our troops which prohibit them fighting any kind of war, the troops were severely undermanned to begin with, and had we left when Bush Declared victory (as we should have) then the region may be in less shambles today.
I was always uncomfortable that we didn’t declare war on afghanistan, and very uncomfortable that we didn’t delcare war on Iraq, and those two things combined with what is really going on over there led me to where I am at today.
I now realize that not only are we being taxed to blow up there bridges, but we are being taxed to rebuild them, all the while ours are falling down here.

Had the congress not seeded (unconstitutionally) power to the president to do what ever he wants in Iraq, had they declared war we would have gone in destroyed the regime and got out. Nation Building is not our problem, we would be able to protect our borders and our own country if private property rights were strongly enforced, and if these ridiculous entangling alliances were ended.
Bring the troops home
let me alone (Laissez~faire capitalism)
Give the states there rights

RonPaul for President 2008

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:42 am Clay Shentrup:

It would be a lot easier to vote for minor parties if we had a decent voting method, such as Range Voting, or its simplified form Approval Voting.

http://reformthelp.org/issues/voting/range.php

Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
clay@electopia.org
415.240.1973

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:54 am Nash:

I might not be such a staunch libertarian if we even had more than a handful in congress (they are in disguise of course) but since there are so few you got to make them count.

Ron Paul is radical, true, but he’s not unrealistic. There is only so much he can do with a dem/rep congress, he’s well aware of this, and ending the war in less than a year and cutting some taxes is good enough for me.

If the establishment repubs actually acted fiscally conservative then maybe they would get my vote (they have in the past) but until they stop outspending the democrats I’m voting Libertarian. Period.

Oct 25, 2007 - 1:57 am David Thomson:

“Next year, I’m not sure which party I’ll support for President, much less which candidate.”

You will have no choice but to usually vote Republican. Your father’s party is the lesser of evils. The Democratic Party is committed heart and soul to a dishonest form of pacifism. Military action is perceived to most assuredly result in more violence. Furthermore, the Democrats are existentially unable to deal with the misdeeds of darker skinned individuals. The latter are presumed to be inherently victims of white oppression. At the end of the day, it is our fault that Osama bin Ladin and his buddies wish to murder us. The Democrats have become self-hating Americans. Their consensus view is that the war on terror is a greatly exaggerated concept. The struggle against Islamic nihilism will virtually cease if a Democrat like Hillary Clinton becomes our commander-in-chief. Also, never forget what type of people will join her in Washington, D.C.

This is the number one question you should normally ask of each candidate: are they the least politically correct of the choices available in this particular election? It really is that simple.

Oct 25, 2007 - 2:22 am Jason:

Yes, libertarian concepts are rather idealistic. I fully accept and realize that many people have serious problems with granting freedom to others they deem not ‘capable’ of handling such freedom.

I feel the same of every person who calls Ron Paul a ‘crazy’. Had I my druthers, I’d never let you near a sharp pair of scissors, let alone a voting machine.

However, common sense prevails, and I realize that even the dumb and stupid among us deserve a chance to have their opinion, however incorrect it may be.

So I’ll continue to vote for libertarians, you continue to vote for fascists, and one day you’ll realize just how mistaken you were.

Luckily, I have the grand fortune(or misfortune, as it may be) of knowing that my position is the philosophically and Constitutionally correct one. Self-righteous anger is always satisfying, even in defeat.

Cheers to you all,

Jason in Kansas

Oct 25, 2007 - 2:41 am gcblues:

say what you will about the impracticably of libertarianism. you cannot avoid the obvious. the 2 things which are the greatest threat to the liberty and economic survival of americans are public education and the combination of ssi, and mediscare.

only the libertarians advocate the end of public education which turns out uneducated emotionally unstable adult children thinking eveything should be free.

only libertarians want to realease the boat anchor holding us financially hostage to the phony schemes of ssi and mediscare.

just think, if our first communist president, FDR, had instituted a private savings plan virtually every man and woman that worked for 25 years or more would today be millionaires securing them, their family, and their heirs forever.

it is remarkable the stupidity of these federal realms, and only libertarians advocate their complete demise. for that we need them very much!

Oct 25, 2007 - 3:32 am David Thomson:

I should also add that the typical Libertarian possesses a childishly immature attitude towards the war on terror. They are convinced that American foreign policy is the number one cause of the unrest with the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. This has virtually nothing to do with it whatsoever! The Islamic crazies are enraged because of their cultural inferiority. This is, alas, the fault of their ancestors—and not the Western world. We did nothing to encourage them to embrace Ludditism and be contemptuous towards secular learning.

Oct 25, 2007 - 3:51 am gcblues:

i am sorry david, but that is just silly. to say islamic jihad has not grown and gained favor in part because of our military and economic presence in their arena is simply stupid on its face ….. indeed it is childishly immature of you to think so.

yeah, they only want to kill us because they and their culture are so inadequate and ignorant. they would kill us even if there was never an israel, and we never had a presence in their arena. it is people like you that suggest the war on terror can only be won by either killing them all, or killing enough of them so that those left will adopt our enlightened culture.

sir, respectfully, your view yields nothing but a losing end plan and should be rejected for that and that alone.

Oct 25, 2007 - 4:11 am NJ:

It’s always amusing to read Ron Paul supporters.

Ron Paul’s view of the world died with the invasion of Normandy. Anyone who believes that the US can be isolationist is breathtakingly ignorant of our history and our current/future enemy, and should be taken as seriously as a 7th grader on all matters political.

Oct 25, 2007 - 4:30 am Brad Linzy, Evansville, IN:

I will be voting for Ron Paul because I’m sick of a government that lies to me. It’s become pretty damned obvious that half of what we THINK we know about the world is nothing more than stage-managed propaganda, usually designed with one purpose in mind - to keep us at war with someone, ANYONE, anywhere in the world.

The Straussian neo-conservatives and the globalist “liberals” now have exactly the same agenda: keep power at all costs, even if it means telling the public little ‘white’ lies and creating ‘necessary myths’ to do it.

For once in my lifetime I know I don’t have to settle for this bull any longer, and I think those of you who do are ignorant cowards, plain and simple. What are you scared of? Last time I checked, the United States hasn’t been invaded (except by Mexicans along a wide open border) since 1812!

No one is saying be “isolationist”, not even Ron Paul. He’s non-interventionist, which is a huge difference…but you already knew that. Someone in the comments has already displayed his ignorance in this regard. Ron Paul would have done the same thing with regard to WWII, except the difference would have been we wouldn’t have imposed sanctions on Japan and driven them to war the way Roosevelt’s administration did.

We didn’t need to wait to be attacked at Pearl Harbor to declare war on Germany either. Our merchant ships had already been attacked on the high seas by German u-boats - a clear act of war that congress had every right to retaliate against.

Which brings me to another point… The president doesn’t declare war anyway, the CONGRESS does!

Pajamas Media is seeming more and more like an AIPAC or Rockefeller front to keep us at war in Iraq. You’ve already taken Ron Paul off all your little web polls because you didn’t like the results. Then when you notice your traffic goes way down when you refuse to allow Ron Paul, you print stories like this that straddle the fence of pro and anti Paul to get hits while at the same time slandering perhaps the only good man left in Washington.

Hey wait a second…didn’t I already boycott this website??? I’m sorry you find it necessary to lose readership. Your loss. But of course, that isn’t really your goal is it.

Oct 25, 2007 - 5:38 am David Thomson:

“…to say islamic jihad has not grown and gained favor in part because of our military and economic presence in their arena is simply stupid on its face.”

I doubt verey much that you have ever read the works of Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer
and others who are far more knowledgeable than yourself about the Muslim world. The crazies are primarily enraged over our power and wealth. Only the sons of Mohammed are suppose to rule the Earth. We infidel scum have no right to our successes.

Are you implying that Israel should not exist? Are we also suppose to ignore those Muslims who wish to interact with us? You seem to think that the only authoritative Muslim voices are those of the extremists.

Oct 25, 2007 - 5:55 am Joy:

So you totally discount that what happened in NYC was a result of illegal immigration (overstaying of visas), poor security on the part of the airlines (uniform and key cards stolen) and the government’s requirement of letting terrorists take over planes? Not to mention our support of the UN, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and our foreign policy? Wake up! I’m not saying the terrorists were right, far from it, but don’t expect our foreign policy to NOT have consequences. Our leadership needs to learn that we cannot impose our values on others, just as other countries cannot impose their values on us.

Oct 25, 2007 - 5:56 am Eric Sundwall:

Unfortunately all political debate in this country is couched as either liberal or conservative and associated nominally with Dems and the GOP. Because of the electoral limitations (winner take all districts) it’s next to impossible for third parties to win. The impossibility of that task then tends to minimize the real influence of libertarian values. After all, Americans like winners and want to be associated with them. Whatever truth non-interventionism or minimal government may have, it will be swallowed by the pluralistic mentality of competing interests amongst an either/or reality.

Oct 25, 2007 - 6:07 am Brian S:

You picked a funny time to turn against Ron Paul, since on the one issue you hold up as your example of why you “turned” - the war in Afghanistan - Paul was on your side.

Why not admit it has nothing to do with Afghanistan, and everything to do with Iraq? You just can’t stand that everything - everything - Paul said about Iraq in 2002 came true. Paul said his reading of the intelligence available to Congress indicated that Saddam had no WMD: true. Paul said that Iraq would be a quagmire: true. Paul said that invading Iraq would create a historic recruiting opportunity for Al Qaeda and leave us less safe than before: true.

I also find it strange that you self-describe as a libertarian, but manage to write an entire column about the politics of the 2001-2007 period without talking about the Bush administration’s repeated sh*tting all over the Constitution, and the enthusiastic way in which every Republican candidate other than Paul has embraced all of the Bush administration’s unConstitutional and illiberal actions.

If you left a political party because ONE person wrote a column you didn’t agree with, and because Nick Gillespie tries to have a sense of humor over at Hit n’Run, you will wait a long time before you find a party you can actually accept. I guarantee you that every last political party in America has at least one person in it that you will disagree with, and at least one person who makes smartass remarks.

Oct 25, 2007 - 6:36 am Larry:

I don’t see the problem with Ron Paul here. He was an ardent proponent of the war in Afghanistan (as were, I would argue, all rational libertarians). He was against the war in Iraq from the beginning, and we can see from the present realities that he was certainly correct in retrospect.

Ron Paul seems to echo your philosophy, at least as presented in the above column, rather well.

Oct 25, 2007 - 6:38 am Brian:

From here, it looks as if the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy.

I know exactly how you feel here. While not as Libertarian leaning as you might be I still find plenty of fault with the GOP “leadership”.

I would LOVE to support the Libertarians but like you said they’ve gone crazy. Just look at how your simple mention of Ron Paul has brought out some nuts. I cannot support a “head in the sand” foreign policy and abandonment of Israel.

Oct 25, 2007 - 6:38 am Squid:

Because of the electoral limitations (winner take all districts) it’s next to impossible for third parties to win.

Next to impossible, but not impossible. When the candidates from the major parties are sufficiently bad, the third-party guy has a chance. Trust me; I live in Minnesota, where we elected Predator movie stars long before California ever thought of it.

I’m starting to think that the slate of major candidates this time ’round may be sufficiently bad. And I’m very pleased to have a Reform Party to support here, as an alternative to the corrupt and the crazy.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:11 am fred lapides:

Libertarians of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your illusions.

When will believers in this or that party or perspective simply realize that the American system is severely botched because of the massive input into all legislation, prevented or passed, by interest and lobby groups, and that such input in an increasingly expensive elections demands more money from these groups who, in turn, have more and more to say about what gets passed. Or not.

In sum: till something seriously done about interest groups, lobbies, our system will not reflect what voters truly want, be they of this that or the other party or belief.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:12 am Joe:

Like you, I let my Libertarian party membership lapse after 9/11. The LP schtick just didn’t pass the seriousness test after that. Can’t we legalize pot and have F-22s? And “changing the world one losing candidate at a time” is the best one-liner I have read in a long time.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:19 am Roark:

I am much the same boat as you. The Libertarian party let me down badly in the last five years.

The reason for the comment, however, is the pseudo Ron Paul swarm you have started by bringing Him up. The core reason I have always supported and preferred the Libertarian party was it’s honesty. In this election, however, Ron Paul has set up the most deceitful, elaborate Internet scam made up of a few thousand supporters who vote early, vote often on any non-scientific, cookie based poll they can find and then trumpet the results as if they mean something.

When Libertarian principles are defended by someone who uses deceit and trickery as their prime (and only) characteristic they have jumped the shark fully and while the Republicans and Democrats may engage in just as much chicanery it totally undermines the only appeal and pull the Libertarian party had going for them.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:31 am Mark Buehner:

The problem is Libertarian isnt a political party- its a philosophy. Look at the Reps and Dems, it isnt their mutual beliefs that hold them together. Its what they are against. That being the case, a two party system makes sense in a perverse way.

The problem with Libertarians is, being a philosophy, every disagrees over where it should end. Do we really need local firehouses? Is the income tax ripe to be abolished? When you spend your time infighting about crap like that you dont have a prayer in fundraising or recruiting against parties with great rallying calls like Stop Abortion! (or Stop Stopping Abortion) or Stop Tax Hikes (Stop the Rich from Existing!). Most people feel strongly about a handful of issues and identify with the party that is against whatever messes with those issues. That is totally foriegn to those seeped in Libertarian minutia, where the question of whether no parking signs should exist sends members to the barricades. You cant win that way. Until L’s find an issue they hate more than all the navel gazing they will never galvanize a true coalition.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:40 am Jay Solo:

I went through similar, but ten years or so before you, with Ron Paul being the last time I took serious interest in an LP candidate.

I first heard of “libertarian” as a more logical alternative to conservative and liberal in 1976 somewhere between 9th and 10th grades leading up to Ford’s election. Er… I mean Carter’s election… ugh. The description of socially liberal and fiscally conservative clicked like it was the most logical thing I had ever heard.

I followed Ed Clark’s candidacy in 1980, but I think I voted for Reagan because, hello, I had to vote against Carter, and Reagan smartly sounded libertarian in some of the most important ways, nullifying that threat when it was at its worst.

I discovered and subscribed to Reason in the early eighties. Well, it would have been the end of 81 or beginning of 82. It was around the same time I read 1984 and ended up with nightmares, to which I was not prone. Then I read Atlas Shrugged, which made them go away. After that, I joined the Massachusetts and national Libertarian Parties, attending about three annual state conventions.

My very first impression of Libertarians in person was the attractive young lady who manned the registration table bitching whinily because I, being a little late to arrive, was making her miss part of a film being shown. It was, as I recall, Anarchism in America.

My lasting impressions of Libertarians in person, apart from the overall conclusion that at least the state party was too much of a clique, were twofold:

One was when I was shopping for books at the obligatory book dealer table at the convention. I was looking eagerly at a book about a legal theory of strict liability, because it was a concept I had come up with entirely on my own and was intrigued to see in the title of a book. An overbearing LP guy, aware I was a newbie, insisted almost to the point of forcing me that I would NOT buy that book, but would stick to more basic books instead. I still can’t believe the gall.

Another was Rebecca Shipman, whose candidacy for governor fell during my membership, laughing at me for not knowing that men could belong to the League of Women Voters. She was one of those overtly friendly yet obnoxiously smarmy and superior people. The same thing made me uncomfortable with my marketing professor and helped ensure I didn’t choose that as a major.

So, yeah, there were cool people, and it would have helped were I less shy and more assertive, and more actively interested in hands-on political participation, but it was very much a clique.

I’ve never stopped being a libertarian, but the Libertarians are unrealistic (a more verbose and polite way of saying “crazy”) and serve best as a fount of libertarian nudging. This Presidency went completely off the rails when the scope or even the presence of the libertarian leaning elements among the voters was dsmissed.

The one thing Libertarians used to point out that was true is that most people are at least 51% libertarian. Right now a Ron Paul, as much as 100% so, can’t win, but a 70% or so libertarian Republican could.

A shame there’s not one handy.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:56 am Peg C.:

I toy constantly with libertarianism and always get stuck at where they are not serious about the GWOT, foreign relations and enemies, and the military. Libertarians simply do not live in the world I have accepted that I live in. I can agree with them on most domestic issues to an extent but my belief in a robust U.S. military and foreign interventions to keep us safe will never fit. The Republicans are incompetent, the Dems are evil, and the Libertarians are naive. I’m stuck with the incompetents forever.

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:23 am RJ:

Sad that there is too much conflation between libertarian thought, philosophies, and policies and the largely inconsequential Libertarian Party.

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:25 am Russ Mitchell:

My problem is that the Libertarian critique of the Republicans is still valid: the only time the Republicans ever try to uphold their campaign promises are right about the time the next electoral cycle starts (and that by small numbers of relatively unimportant folks in the House). It’s rope-a-dope for the voter. I may not relish the idea of another eight years of the Clintons screwing up our foreign and domestic policy… but why should I reward the folks who passed McCain-Feingold and the latest gargantuan package for the baby boomers?

I agree, Mr. Green, the Libertarians are pretty hopeless. But the major parties are openly corrupt: why reward them with a vote?

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:28 am Ryan:

Roark, do you consider millions of dollars in donations from all across the country part of this “deceit and trickery”? Do you consider the Fox debate text messaging polls “deceit and trickery”?

Is there anything that you consider “fair” besides Ron Paul supporters laying down and allowing your favorite neocon to win the primary by default?

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:31 am Chuck Pelto:

TO: Stephen Green, et al.

RE: The Various Parties….

“…the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy.” — Stephen Green

…and a sense of futility.

It does look rather bleak. However, I’d rather vote for ‘wrong’ over ’stupid’ or ‘crazy’.

At least with ‘wrong’ there is a chance of making it ‘right’. With the other two, there is no cure….except by God.

And both of them deny His existence.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

[Atheist, n., One hoping to God that He doesn’t exist.]

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:34 am Brian S:

Roark, I suggest you stroll over to the FEC’s reporting website to check the numbers on donations for the last two quarters - not to see the much-reported $5 million number for Paul, but to check out the number of donors he has had.

His number of donors trounces most of the Republican candidates.

Unless every single person in the US who is supporting Paul has made a donation [an absurd notion] then his support is demonstrably not made up of a few thousand people on the internet.

In any event, it’s no more “dishonest” for someone at the non-campaign-affilated ronpaulforums.com to direct other forum users to an online poll then it is for Atrios to put up an email link for his readers to bitch at Harry Reid. That’s what the internet is for: communication. You just don’t like it because Ron Paul’s people are doing MORE communicating than the anemic supporters of Giuliani or Thompson. It’s not Paul’s fault that his supporters are actually paying attention, and the supporters of the other candidates are unmotivated layabouts.

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:35 am N:

It seems as if the only aspect of Libertarianism you disagree with is their foreign policy of non-intervention. Such thinking is not really “Libertarian” and more nativist and isolationist. There are Libertarian movements (most notably Ayn Rand’s semi-serious movements) which actually argue strongly in favor of military intervention (they wasted no time calling for nuclear weapons).

Such a view is of course in an absolute minority, but it shows that it is possible to be a Libertarian, believing in things like the free market and free trade without being opposed to intervention.

Additionally, Ron Paul does not strike me as a real Libertarian as much as he does as a nativist who “discovered” the constitution. His desire to build a wall between the USA and Mexico to stop immigration stands against principles of open immigration, and his desire to want to pull out of the WTO, an organization which is designed to increase free trade, seems not to match his supposed “Free Trade” ideals.

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:48 am Non-Libertarian libertarian GOP voter:

I know why I am not voting Libertarian for a long time.

Hint: It has something to do with the unhealthy obsessions with “Strausians” and “neocons” and “Israel.”

“Anti-War” as key value? Isn’t that just going along with the bayonets marching you to the death camps instead of fighting back?

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:49 am Skyler:

My experience was roughly the same. I was a Libertarian, even helped a woman’s campaign in California when I lived there.

Moving to Texas, I backed off on the party, seeing less reason for it, but I still tended to vote for them.

The final straw was in 2001, a few days after the attacks when the LP blamed us for the attacks.

That was it. No more. I don’t know why so many people confuse libertarianism with pacifism.

I especially agree with your assessment of Reason after Virginia Postrel left. There was not a shred of reason left with Gillespie at the controls and he turned the magazine into pure mindless polemics and anti-americanism.

I can’t vote for a democrat because that would put communists and socialists in power. The republicans had so much promise despite some of their ideological flaws, but they have proven so venal in their corruption that they cannot govern.

So now what do we do, those of us who think freedom from government is a right and worth defending?

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:51 am Jack Tallent:

Great essay. My political identification has followed an almost identical arc. Nowaday, libertarianism (maybe even Objectivism) forms the “skeleton” of my politics, but there is Neo-Con flesh on those bones.

Oct 25, 2007 - 8:59 am Brian:

I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one. I would have eagerly voted for Ron Paul in 2000 (but Harry Browne was fine). 2008? Not a chance. Between his irrational isolationism and all that Gold Standard bluster he sounds like he’s off (or maybe too much on) his meds.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:00 am Cincinnatus:

They astroturfed Technorati to keep Ron Paul seemingly more popular than Paris Hilton. People who can’t go five minutes without pimping their man with all the subtlty of Baghdad Bob in a Mentos ad deserve a permenant chair at the kiddy table. Best thing to do is make fun of them.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:02 am Jim:

“From here, it looks as if the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy.”

Yes, I know exactly what you mean!

I cast my first vote for Goldwater in 1964, beginning a long history of voting for losing candidates. (I’ve voted for the winner twice in all that time… and regret that second win except for the alternatives being even worse.)

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:14 am Kendall:

Boy do I agree with you Stephen, I followed a similar path - I subscribed to Reason for a time, I voted L every chance I could for any election.

But the anti-war stuff from libertarians mystifies me. It seems to me that the core belief that people can live with minimal government support is based on the assumption that neighbors help each other.

Well, at a macro scale spreading freedom to other societies is simply the same concept on a larger scale.

It’s crazy to be against helping Iraq (for that’s what is really going on there now, more so than a classical war) because of the huge dividend the world gets from a society where people are free to study what they want and express themselves how they like (far more so than any potential recruiting any terrorist organizations get - note how that aspect has entirely dried up in Iraq already!). And with an Iraq grateful to America for assistance, we also get a nation of willing translators and potential agents to help us deal with other countries not as friendly…

How anyone familiar with what a dictatorship or fundamentalist government does to women supports the status quo of the world today is beyond me.

Perhaps there is some way to jump start a new wing of the Libertarian party that has an explicit plank of allowing for defense and helping other nations as appropriate.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:24 am David Ashbaugh:

You can always be an “independent” I have been one for 65 voting years. Despite libertarian leanings , I thought all the libertaraian candidates had their head under a blanket regarding Foreign Affairs.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:40 am David Thomson:

Let’s get to the nitty-gritty: far too many Ron Paul supporters appear to be anti-Semites. When will the candidate denouce these whack jobs? Also, does Paul belive that Israel is responsible for the rage of the Muslim world? Something does not smell right.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:43 am Paul B:

A libertarian means more than just desiring low taxes and abortion rights - if you cannot understand and internalize the pledge of non-aggression then you can’t ever be a libertarian. If you can’t look honestly at the history of post-WWII U.S. foreign policy then you can’t ever be a libertarian. If you’re a dummy and think that Islamic fundamentalism grew as a response to “cultural inferiority” instead of as a response to the U.S. overthrow of a democratically elected secular leader and support for a torturing kleptocracy for 20 years then you can’t ever be a libertarian. It takes a basic sense of deceny and honesty which is why Stephen Green, Glenn Reynolds, etc were never real libertarians and is why real libertarians are glad to see them stop using an honerable political label for their wretched ideology.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:46 am Clayton E. Cramer:

I was an LP activitist in the period 1979 to 1990. I voted for Ron Paul in 1988. But two things turned me from a libertarian into a conservative:

1. I went back to complete my degree in History. The more I studied, the more apparent it was that the libertarian version of American history was fantasy. The Constitution provided for a limited federal government (and failed) but not a libertarian one. And power was left to the states, which were not necessarily limited in their powers, and were often fiercely antilibertarian. For example, see the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which directed the legislature to pass mandatory church attendance laws.

2. I was raising kids in the Bay Area, where for practical purposes, the libertarian social agenda (except about guns) is fully implemented. Police wave to 13 year olds smoking pot on the streets of Cotati. Parents supply beer and pot to their junior high age kids–and wonder why they end up messed up. There is no right or wrong, just what makes you happy. It is a heck of a place to raise kids.

There are strong practical arguments for laws that go beyond prohibiting force and fraud. What’s wrong with people having sex in the middle of the street? Why would you object to someone defecating in the middle of the street, as long as they clean up afterwards? I mean, where’s the force or fraud?

Civilization requires a bit more than just criminalizing force or fraud.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:53 am pch1013:

@David T.: Ron Paul apparently enjoys enthusiastic support among the Stormfront crowd, and it’s not clear whether he has bothered to repudiate it.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:55 am Vivictius:

I dont know if Ron Paul is crazy but his supporters sure are.

Oct 25, 2007 - 9:58 am M. Rothbard:

“But the anti-war stuff from libertarians mystifies me. It seems to me that the core belief that people can live with minimal government support is based on the assumption that neighbors help each other.

Well, at a macro scale spreading freedom to other societies is simply the same concept on a larger scale.”

It would be mystery to a mentality that can look at the record of U.S. intervention and think it has anything to do with “spreading freedom.” Funny how the majority of people who live in the countries we’ve allegedly “spread freedom” to don’t quite see it the way you do.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:00 am Tennwriter:

At twelve I believed in the Invisible Government and Conspiracy. At fifteen, I believed in Libertarianism.

Later I grew up.

Tarianism is the philosophy of cheap certainties, the thing that is preferred by the adolescent mind.

Thats the end of my slam.

There is a lot good about it. Lets get rid of the post office and the Dept. of Ed.. They make a lot of good points.

If they could see that their model doesn’t fully describe the world, they’d be even better. If they realized that philosophically they are not absolutely correct, and are only correct in some cases, that’d be wonderful.

But, even when they’re bad, they can be good. Because y’know Ayn Rand might have been crazy, but I wonder if we’d be saluting a red flag with a hammer and sickle on it without her craziness. Maybe the Republic NEEDS Libertarians, not in charge, but as gadflies?

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:03 am John Elliott:

As many others have posted I can relate very well with what you went through. I am surprised that neither you nor DailyPundit mentioned the NeoLibertarian Network which seems to most closely relate to the real-world view of our type of liberatian.

By the way, I came to my libertarian view through Science Fiction such as Heinlein and L. Neil Smith which is a very good media for showing what life would be like under libertarian policies. I would like to see libertarians (big L or small l) put more effort into spreading the word about libertarian fiction to young people as this can be a very powerful method of communicating our views.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:19 am John Elliott:

I wonder how much of the problem with Republican and Democrat lawmakers is the simple fact that they both belong to genus “homo politicus”.

Politicians in general seem to be espouse what ever keeps them in office and adds to their bank account.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:25 am ZZMike:

It’s the same old story. I started out as a Democrat (voted for JFK), but gradually, the party left me, so I switched to Republican. Perhaps Reagan was our best time, but since then, once again, the party left me. President Bush has certainly left the conservative camp. Libertarians are no choice - some of my Libertarian friends say “don’t vote - it only encourages them”.

We can only hope that 4 years of a Democratic president will be the boot in the rear that wakes us up.

But still, a pox on both their houses. (The Libertarians and other independents don’t have houses - they just have little bungalows off to the side.)

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:28 am John:

Once upon a time, I was a state delegate to the 98 LP convention, attended monthly meetings, handed out flyers at local malls, collected ballot signatures, etc etc.

No more. Libertarianism is all fine and well, but if I have to hear one more LP member rail about fascism (please, get a clue) and the death of liberty blah blah blah, I’m gonna scream.

As an ideal, I prefer Constitutional libertarianism within my borders but outside of them — hey, it’s a rough and tumble world and there are entire nations of people that would have you dead as soon as look at you.

I think we have the right, as a nation, to do whatever we feel necessary to secure ourselves.

The hunter is entitled to kill the tiger before the tiger starts gnawing his leg off.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:33 am capital L:

Anyone in favor of getting rid of the Fed and returning to the gold standard is not to be taken seriously.

Period.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:36 am M. Simon:

Et tu?

Moi aussi.

Oct 25, 2007 - 11:29 am Brian S:

capital L:

I don’t embrace the gold standard stuff either - but you do realize, of course, that a metals-based or metals-backed currency was a human universal for hundreds of years, and our experiment with being off the gold standard dates only to Nixon’s time?

Did every President before Nixon have economic policies that were not to be taken seriously? Were they all clowns? Every last one of them, from Washington through Johnson?

And to all the people who want a conquering, Trotskyite libertarianism that exports liberty to all reaches of the globe: the reason we don’t want that is because it’s been tried. The French tried to export their revolution, and that ended in Bonapartism. We tried to export our revolution after 9/11, and it ended up with Bushism. You simply won’t be able to maintain momentum in an aggressive, conquering war as a democracy without demonizing your domestic opponents as traitors, without massive secrecy to cover up your conquering military’s little “mistakes” like Abu Ghraib, without kicking in doors in occupied territories to track down people who don’t believe in your crusade, and without torture chambers to extract confessions from nationalist types that won’t accept freedom if it requires national subjugation. The Bush Presidency is not an accident; it’s the inevitable result of his policy of pre-emption.

Opportunities to lead noble wars of liberation are historically rare. The circumstances of WWII aren’t always going to be around. When you try to force the issue, you throw away the principles you’re supposedly trying to spread.

Oct 25, 2007 - 11:39 am mr lawson:

Don’t give up hope just yet. A new breed of Libertarians are forming. The reality based Libertarians.

Oct 25, 2007 - 11:40 am Michael in Seattle:

Paul B at Oct 25, 2007 09:46 AM wrote:

A libertarian means more than just desiring low taxes and abortion rights - if you cannot understand and internalize the pledge of non-aggression then you can’t ever be a libertarian.

Non aggression sounds fine to me. I dissent from the idea that non-aggression includes ignoring aggression elsewhere when we have the ability, and reason to intervene. Contrary to the deluded ramblings of most, Iraq did not spring forth fully formed from the head of the current President in 2003. We’ve been enmeshed there since 1991. To be against an intervention in Iraq is to ignore the past 20 years of our involvement there. It is, quite frankly, revisionist, trite, and shallow.

If you can’t look honestly at the history of post-WWII U.S. foreign policy then you can’t ever be a libertarian.

So now we are the great fools for deciding international communism was worthy of opposing from 1945 to 1991? Again, who looks deluded here?

If you’re a dummy and think that Islamic fundamentalism grew as a response to “cultural inferiority” instead of as a response to the U.S. overthrow of a democratically elected secular leader and support for a torturing kleptocracy for 20 years then you can’t ever be a libertarian.

You’re a ‘dummy’ if you think that Islamic fundamentalism is in any way related to the overthrow of a ’secular’ dictator of the Ba’ath party who ran a aliberial, repressive cult of personality at the expense of his subjects who happened to be mostly Muslim.

It takes a basic sense of decency and honesty which is why Stephen Green, Glenn Reynolds, etc were never real libertarians and is why real libertarians are glad to see them stop using an honorable political label for their wretched ideology.

And here is why I don’t subscribe to ‘Libertarianism’. If you do not conform to the Orthodoxy, you are a Heretic and thus Shunned.

I am not interested in your religion’s newspaper. Please remove my name from your mailing list - even though I am a proponent of small, saner government in a Federal system.

Oct 25, 2007 - 11:48 am Sandra Mendoza:

I would love to see a Ron Paul debate with Dennis Kucinich live blogged by Stephen in his Vodkapundit persona.

In California, it struck me that there were Libertarian Party members who liked being big fish in a small pond, so I left.

GWB’s rhetorical incapacity led me to Perot whose platform had much in common with the later Contract With America and at a party with lots of Libertarians who never voted, I got them enthusiastic about voting idealistic Republicans into office. (Newt’s putting the Contract in a tear out TV Guide page was brilliant. Mad proselytizing easy).

We need to convince a lot more of the corrupt and/or spineless Republican officeholders to retire and vote in tough libertarian Republicans instead.

My candidate didn’t pander on the Jonathan Pollard issue when before the Jewish Republicans. As a senator, he wanted to investigate campaign finance malfeasance in both parties which irritated Lott and lost him a seat on the Armed Services Committee, and he became an actor after helping a whistleblower fight a corrupt state government. Also, he volunteered to help Scooter Libby, a man he’d never met because he thought what was being done to him was unjust.

Plus, when pissed, his scowl and growl would make even Putin pee. a definite plus for a commander in chief, makes war less likely.

The young JFK made Khruschev think he could be rolled, and Slick Willie gave Osama the same impression. Our national nice guyism also fooled the Japanese until too late a Japanese Admiral said: “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled her with a terrible resolve.” Better to have the scariness up front. When our military was in fierce warrior mode (the march into Baghdad) Khaddafi gave up his weapons.

Electing a potentially scary Prez would avoid those kinds of “misunderstandings” about how “soft” we are.

DON’T TREAD ON ME!!!!! GRRRRRR!!!!

Just saying

Oct 25, 2007 - 11:57 am Rivenburg:

I am a card carrying Libertarian, I DONT vote Libertarian ever though.
I am a member because in the future I see this party as the one to go to when the crazies are pushed (ever so gently) out.

The USA needs this conversation on Libertarianism to continue, what IS a Libertarian? Do we allow Iyn Rand to continue to define this?

In my opinion the Libertarian party is NOT Libertarian, it is Anarchist. It is confused.
Open borders is NOT a Libertarian value, it is an Anarchists value, as is all drugs legal, all porn legal. Those of you that support these planks need to form your own party, call it what you want but the term Libertarian will undergo a sea-change in public perception in the next few decades. We have already purged many of the insane planks from the platform, others will follow until the Anarchists leave on their own.
To get a grip on what a real Libertarian should look like, the bulk of the Republican party that isnt Religious Right is Libertarian to one degree or another.
The Libertarian party in it’s present & even past form has never been serious about winning seats, it’s glorified debating club with notions so off-beat as to never stand a chance of implimentation.

You want to be Libertarian? HELP CHANGE THE PLANKS TO REFLECT SANITY AND REALISTIC GOALS. Pie-in-the-sky politics is childish or insane.

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:04 pm George B:

Power hungry people will always be drawn to positions of power, using whatever party label helps them get there. People who work to get into government to reduce their own power are rare. Voting for the lesser of two evils candidates reduces the rate of spread of government power, but we also need to support the rare individuals that actually kill off a government agency or two.

I think our best chance at cutting the federal government down to size would be if the middle class rapidly gained access to the same tax evasion possibilities that the rich enjoy. Picture convenient Cayman Island consulate offices with branch banks suddenly appearing in every major city. I bet millions of Americans could hand carry cash “outside” the US faster than Congress could react. Instant defacto tax cut on savings and investment.

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:25 pm Terri:

Excellent analysis. I’ve always felt strange myself which is why I’m a registered independent. I have serious issues with every party including the Libertarians. I usually vote Repub only because as you so well put it the Democrats are dangerous. Should we start a new party?

Oct 25, 2007 - 12:49 pm Demosophist:

The difference between a libertarian and an anarchist is that one is more likely to drive a Dodge than a Volvo. Alan Stang just seems brilliantly crazy until you happen to notice the stench…

Oct 25, 2007 - 1:07 pm Demosophist:

I’m just kidding, of course. The US is, by definition, a libertarian-friendly culture. About a third of its founding ideology is based on anti-statism, and another third, based on equality of condition (meaning opportunity), is not something to which most libertarians object. Even our religious sectarianism represents a kind of acceptable religious competition. But, as Stephen suggests, the more liberarians I see taking up the far left’s talking points (including the Toofers) the less likely I am to take them seriously.

I don’t see a single Republican or Democrat Presidential candidate who, for me at least, represents an across-the-board mature perspective. (Duncan Hunter probably comes the closest.) And Ron Paul has far more support than he actually deserves.

I can, however, live with most of the Republican candidates and even some of the Democrats. And that’s mainly because there really isn’t an alternative to the basic anti-totalitarian neoconservative strategy we’ve adopted. No matter what these candidates say, the only differences between them will be how they all choose to implement the strategy.

BTW, I love to argue from the libertarian position… because it’s so easy to defend. Unfortunately that seems to lead to some intellectual overconfidence that worries me.

Oct 25, 2007 - 1:40 pm T:

Michael in Seattle

Way to miss the point there, Michael. Look up Operation Ajax sometime and see if it has any bearing on “overthrow of a popularly elected leader”. See also the next 24 years for “support of a murdering kleptocracy”. This might have a wee tad bit to do with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

Oct 25, 2007 - 1:47 pm TomT:

Amen, especially the Reason comment. I don’t know what heppened, but that is not the Libertarianism I grew up on. We loved limited government and liberty. We recognized tyranny and realized it needed to be defeated. We loved the USA and thought it was still the best country in the world. I think most Libertarians today are Democrats who have finally realized the benefits of the free market. They understand the material reason, but they do not understand the moral reason and why it is essential.

Tom

Oct 25, 2007 - 2:05 pm TomT:

Tom

Oct 25, 2007 - 2:09 pm Bill:

Ron Paul voted for the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists” passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 2001. He is against the Iraq War, which the United States invaded to enforce a United Nations resolution that Saddam was ignoring. If you want war then obviously do not vote for Ron Paul, but do not call him crazy and misstate his positions because you have been listening to Republicans demagogue him the way liberals demagogue conservative Republicans.

Oct 25, 2007 - 2:41 pm Martin Lindeskog:

Stephen Green,

Cheers to you for your rational decision! I wrote a post on the Libertarian movement in 2005.

Best Premises,

Martin Lindeskog - American in spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.

Oct 25, 2007 - 2:47 pm Gary Wylie:

Amen. Sadly. Amen.

Oct 25, 2007 - 3:21 pm M. Simon:

If you look at the AUMF for the Iraq War and the AUMF for the War on the Barbary Jihadis (under Jefferson) they are almost identical.

Are Libs saying Jefferson participated in an illegal war?

Oct 25, 2007 - 4:28 pm M. Simon:

The gold standard depends on the idea that there will be no cheap way to extract gold from sea water.

If such a way is invented the gold standard would lead to super inflation.

Oct 25, 2007 - 4:30 pm Tannim:

Well, I’m not sure why I’m gonna wade into this, but here goes anyway. Please recognize that this is just me and not completely repersentative of all l/Libertarians, although I will admit that I wish it were.

First, the background and disclaimer. I have been an LP member sicne 2000. I walked in the door, got involved on a county-level campaign, and have never stopped since. I’ve been a county officer and a state officer. I’ve done outreach out the butt, done media, done bylaws, legislative lobbying, done treasury, all the nuts and bolts stuff. I even ran for an office once on a platform against a bond measure (I lost, but so did it, saving $46M). I’ve worked and run campaigns for others. About the only things I haven’t done is be a chairperson or run for President. I’m dedicated, but not that dedicated. I prefer to work behind the scenes. I’ve never read Rand. Never will, either. No desire to, and my own journey to libertarianism comes from the left and a lot of study into colonial America and the First Amendment. I believe in simple libertarian positions:

1. My person, my business.

2. My property, my business.

3. Your person, your business.

4. Your property, your business.

5. My business ends where yours begins.

6. I have no right, either morally or legally, to infringe with your rights.

7. Neither do you to me.

8. We as human beings have the fundamental right to make our own decisions and choices, so long as they don’t prevent others from the same.

9. Only people have rights, and they come from our existence, from birth to death.

10. Government powers are inferior to the rights of the people who used those rights to consent to those powers.

Second, there are two issues that I see people having problems here with. One is the party, and the other is the issues positions.

The problem with the LP is simple: infighting. Put two LP members in a room and you’ll get twenty or more differing opinions and each one will claim their position is ideologically more “pure” (whatever that means) than the other. This has been a major problem as long as I’ve been in the LP, and party oldtimers tell me it goes back to the beginning. I get sick of it. The LP exists to advance a libertarian public policy, not be an intellectual Auschwitz.

The problem with the platform is related: purity. Outsiders claim our positions are not doable. I disagree because they have already been done. The problem is that nobody has the political will to do them anymore. Because we’ve had multiple generations now stuck in the mentality that what we’re doing now is OK in any form, in any partial or complete level of action, libertarians, who remember or have educated themselves on what it was like in those better days (IOHOs) are considered to be on the fringe.

So what about the basic issues?

1. Private property rights? Strict enforcement also covers environmental issues and protects freedom. Also includes stopping compulsory taxation and eminent domain. What’s wrong with that?

2. Right to your own self? That includes what we eat, drink, inject, or insert. What’s wrong with that?

3. No welfare? Community and personal responsibility. We don’t see enough of that any more. That’s as much of a moral issue as it is a political and economic one. What’s wrong with that?

4. Self-defense-based neutrality? It’s worked for Swedes and Swiss among others for centuries. We don’t need to be EarthCop or BigNanny. The Founding Fathers warned us on that. We ignored them when we shouldn’t have. Let other nations be big boys and girls and go their own, even while we still trade with them. That isn’t isolationist, it’s non-interventionist. It’s global tough love and telling the rest of the world to step up. What’s wrong with that?

(Note: there are so-called libertarians that advocate pre-emotive war. They are not libertarians because they engage in the contradiction that striking first unprovoked is somehow the same as striking back in self-defense. It’s the “He hit me back first!” argument.)

I could go on, but my point is clear: people don’t seem to think it out critically and don’t seem to ask themselves the cause-effect questions and the simple ones of the Golden Rule and “how did we get to where we are?”. Some critics do, to their credit, but I haven’t seen many of those make themsevles known very well.

So are the critics of the libertarian movement right or wrong? It’s actually a lot of both. The LP is still trying to figure itself out after 35 years. That’s lousy and we should have it straight by now, but people continue to ague about it for no good reason. And in those areas its critics are perfectly justified. But that doesn’t mean we’re trying to get it right. I do the work in the LP I do to try to make things work, and it isn’t always easy. I’m willing to bet that similar problems exist in other parties, just not as magnified as the LP is because of number disparities. But on the issues, I disagree. Criticism there is warranted only if there is legitiamte reasons to back up the criticism. (”9/11 changed everything” is NOT a legitimate reason!). I don’t agree with all libertarian positions either (food labelling, elections and illegal immigration, specifically).

So are we perfect? No way. Are we trying? Yes. Do we care? Of course.

Everything else is just details arguments. But they tend to derail the effort towards the end result.

I support Dr. Paul, not because of his party affiliation in the present or the past, but because I agree with him on most issues more than any other candidate (abortion is where we part ways, but for reasons under #9 and #10 above). I see the other candidates, both D and R as advocating more government, more government, more government. I don’t want that. I want to be my own person free of all of that meddling BS. I’m sick of being the working poor because the tax burden and dollar inflation are both so high. I want to thrive, not just survive, and getting the government out of my house, wallet, and life as much as possible gets me there. I don’t see any other candidate heading there. I’m no anarchist, I’m a minarchist, and I prefer to pay as I go for only what I use.

So we’re not perfect, but we’re not moonbats, either. We have our faults, and we can certainly lose our ficus. In other words, we have the same problems you do. We just think there is a better solution than more government, because we see government as a major if not main source of those problems.

Oct 25, 2007 - 4:30 pm M. Simon:

Who controls the distribution of illegal drugs under the present system?

The government or criminals?

It seems like the lessons of alcohol prohibition are long forgotten. The government regained control of the alcohol market by legalizing alcohol.

Oct 25, 2007 - 4:40 pm Dabney Braggart:

I wonder when the L.P. will be truly ideologically pure by rejecting the Statist institutions of limited liability (ever heard of personal responsibility?) and intellectual “property”.

Come to think of it, why can’t the Free Market control “force and fraud”. The death vs cash vs self-defence decision of one being robbed describes a Pareto curve as surely as the “starve vs work” one I confront; the charge of “fraud” is merely the authoritarian’s excuse to control the weak and stupid by claiming to protect them from their inability to tell when professional, highly-trained liers are lying.

Laws against “theft” are a power-grab attempting make slaves of men too stupid to arm themselves well, never sleep, and invest in incredibly expensive locks.

The Constitution? An unconstitutional fraud perpetrated on the American people by the League of the Cincinatti. Proof? It said nothing about our children’s right to prostitute themselves, my right to kill anyone who looks at me funny for self-defence, and all the rest of our fundamental rights.

Oct 25, 2007 - 5:11 pm Bearster:

Libertarianism is unserious. It’s also devoid of principal, which is why you see libs debating whether to be pro-war to protect liberty or anti-war to protect liberty(!)

They lack a usable definition of liberty.

Oct 25, 2007 - 5:32 pm Craig J. Bolton:

If I read Mr. Green correctly his main problem with libertarianism [small “l” as well as big “l”] is that it does not endorse a Bismarchian foreign policy. Apparently it is “unrealistic” to imagine that the U.S. should not be world police man and should not try to “promote freedom” by sticking a gun in every foreigner’s ear.

So here’s my question for Mr. Green and those of you who agree with him: Was the world of the 20th Century, where “everyone” more or less agreed with Mr. Green, a place where civilization was safer and spread wider than the mid 19th Century, where most Americans and many foreigners outside of Prussia and Russia thought this imperialist world outlook to be insane?

Does Mr. Green feel that the world is safe for freedom now that the Kaiser Will, the Nazis and the Commies are history? Or is in fact totally a mess and getting more collectivist and totalitarian every day?

Any possible causal connection anyone can discern between Greenism and a disintegrating Western Civilization, or is this “just happenstance”?

Oct 25, 2007 - 6:21 pm hoosiertoo:

I too left membership in the Libertarian Party behind, although it didn’t have anything to do with 9/11 or the GWOT.

I am still a Ron Paul supporter, however. The choices offered up the “wrong, corrupt” Republicans (excepting Paul, of course) and the “stupid, corrupt” Democrats leave little alternative than to support the only candidate that seems to have any appreciation of the true nature of liberty at all.

Oct 25, 2007 - 6:55 pm AST:

I also used to think of myself as more libertarian than Republican. Now I’ve decided that libertarians would throw out a lot of my most cherished values, like the duties of citizenship. They want all the liberties, but none of the responsibilities. When we all start thinking we have the right to behave like idiots and not have to bear the consequences, we lose the mortar that holds the bricks of our society together. If we can’t trust other people to behave honestly and competently, not drive on dope, fly on dope, practice medicine on dope, etc. or to take our credit cards without stealing the information on them, or even to ride in the seat across the aisle without trying to blow up the plane. When we lose trust, honor, self-reliance and willingness to carry our own weight and a little of the next guy’s too, we’re done for. Religions, whether you like them overall or not, tend to to teach the values that make society function, such as honesty, work, sacrifice, respect and tolerance. There are plenty of counter examples, but they only prove the rule that the vast majority are faithful, humble people who live good lives and raise good children who grow up to be good citizens. I’m afraid that libertarians have too often turned out to be narcissistic and disrespectful of the core values that built this republic.

That doesn’t mean I don’t agree with them much of the time, only that I don’t want to throw the baby out with the dregs of the pork barrel. I want to live in a country where taking advantage of the naivety of interns is unthinkable and costs you your job every bit as much as if you’re a Republican into sexual harassment or trolling mens’ rooms for gay sex. I want a country that supports me in raising kids with my own values, rather than doing all it can to make it harder.

That’s why I’m a conservative, not a Republican or a libertarian.

Oct 25, 2007 - 7:51 pm Dabney Braggart:

When we all start thinking we have the right to behave like idiots and not have to bear the consequences, we lose the mortar that holds the bricks of our society together.

To be fair to libertarians (I am, after all, a liberal in the better, post-{Campbell-Bannerman} sense, so I’m willing to speak for the unfortunate), I’d say that they’d say that they are precisely _for_ people having the right to behave like “idiots” and face the consequences—the only way to tell if they really have been acting like idiots, as opposed to merely acting in a way conservatives find new and weird or threatening or tabou-tabou.

The best conservative counter-argument is that many actions (all? most?) are not really that new, so that it’s wasteful for each generation to learn the consequences of the stupid ones; “No society can get away with its members’ behaving like that; each generation should not have to suffer a lesson already learned.”

A good liberal counter-argument is that too often the consequences are either completely out of proportion to the mistake, are so irreversible as not to be instructive, are near-random in nature (and so have no moral or educational valence), or fall on parties not responsible for the actual decisions (think of the children!).

But in any event, a libertarian argument might be that it’s wrong to pre-judge any behaviour as idiotic, because things change (laws against fornication make less sense post-{the vulcanisation of rubber} and the invention of penicillin) and traditional societies are more interested in maintaining authority than in individual liberty, so they’re more likely to quash the useful and new than to encourage it.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:07 pm Beth:

Well, I made it through the first several comments before I had to roll my eyes and give up. Same tired old strawmen (”fascist!” “neocon!” “AIPAC!”) from the same perpetual adolescents. Blech. Way to sour a great article and inhibit a discussion. I guess I should’ve known it would go in that direction, as it always does.

Stephen, I actually laughed out loud when I read your words about Reason. I was once a subscriber as well. I also quit reading before my subscription ran out, and was tossing it in the trash rather than reading it when it went silly and hipster. Of course, I’ve never been a L/libertarian, either–just a devout capitalist. Idealism and the “ultimately unserious” in politics just isn’t my thing.

Anyway, I don’t think you’re a “black sheep Republican,” I think it’s just that the so-called religious conservatives (or whatever the word du jour is) are a hell of a lot louder than the rest of us. You aren’t a black sheep because I’m sure most Republican voters are pretty much like you are. There are always factions claiming to be the base, screaming that they’re the “true conservatives” (I’m lookin’ at you, Ron Paul/John Birch Society types) but they’re just a really noisy minority (same goes for the SoCons).

I do find it interesting how many people on the intertubes think insulting someone’s beliefs is an effective recruiting strategy, and the comments to this post are a perfect illustration of the point. Then again, the hostile commenters are drawn to a shrill, angry candidate, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:38 pm Laika's Last Woof:

I wanted for so long to call myself a Libertarian, but they have always been a little too soft on violent crime and WAY too weak on defense.
I was too young to vote for Reagan, but I’d have never gone against the man who said, “Trust but verify.” The big-L Libertarians could’ve learned a thing or two from Reagan.

“Can’t we legalize pot and have F-22s?”

America, F*ck Yeah!

Oct 25, 2007 - 10:59 pm D. Greene:

Weasel word alert: “unserious”

Really? Unserious? I am a libertarian, and my opposition to the war and its conduct are dead serious.

Often, when a writer uses the word “unserious,” it is a sign of intellectual incoherence, as they are reduced to attacking other ideas with name calling. Good work, and typical.

Oct 26, 2007 - 6:22 am Eric Parks:

The reason Ron Paul’s candidacy is popular? He’s right on most issues. Not only that, he’s on record as being right! Ron Paul wants to protect our borders, stop illegal immigration, get us out of a quagmire, RESTORE our liberties (I never thought I wold have to write that in this country), reduce taxes, stop inflation, and rescue the economy. None of the other neocon candidates seem interested in doing those things. Also, you neocons fail to grasp the fact that you can’t win without the liberty-minded/small government types on your side. And we’re not falling for your lies anymore.
Just be happy we Pualites gave your site some much-needed traffic. Your fifteen minutes of fame is almost done. Good Riddance.

Oct 26, 2007 - 7:54 am Demosophist:

Tannim:

Thanks for the relatively clear position statements. As I see it, the problem with the basic libertarian position (an extreme version of which would include the philosophy of Robert Nozick) is that it’s founded on the idea of liberty rather than sovereignty. (This, btw, is something I learned in a James Buchanan seminar.) It turns out that there’s a point at which an excess of liberty results in a deficiency of control. In two dimentions someone walking on ice has more pure freedom of movement than someone walking on land, but asbent the control surfaces (which are constraints on freedom; there’s no other way to put it) it would become impossible to follow through on a motivated act. It’s an error to think that freedom can be sort of infinitely acquired, without crippling the acquirer. When you don a pair of skates you’re limiting your freedom of movement in order to coordinate movement and self control.

However, that’s not entirely Buchanan’s argument, so I don’t want to misrepresent him. His argument is that everything depends on your ability to exit. (Note: with too much freedom you may still exit, but it won’t be under your control. It would be more like an accident, or an involuntary act.) In order to exercise sovereignty you have to be obligated, which is what gives you “purchase.” And there, therefore, have to be reasonable penalties for eschewing obligations. That’s the gray area. It’s possible for people to be saddled with so many obligations they can’t move, and it’s also possible to have so few that intention doesn’t mean anything.

As I said, the US has the most libertarian-friendly political culture on the planet. Our conservatives are far more libertarian than conservatives in either Europe or the other English settler societies, with which they can be constructively compared. And one of the things that bothers me about the strain of libertarianism that builds on long term conspiracies to separate us from our liberties is that they not only presume Americans have been idiots, but that we’ve been idiots for a long time. Alan Stang, for instance, presumes that my ancestors who fought in the Western Armies during the Civil War and who became members of the Grand Army, had no legitimate claim to honor for having sacrificed to end chattel slavery. They were simply dupes in Lincoln’s plan to expand state power.

Well, if this really was a conspiracy… then not only is it too powerful and longstanding to resist but it must also end up on the morally defensible side of the ledger. With Islamic Totalitarianism I think we face a challenge directly analogous to the challenge faced by the veterans in the Grand Army, and the modern crop of veterans will have a similar impact on the culture as they return from victorious engagements. This should be a source of dread for the modern Marxisant left, but it also may not be a huge comfort for doctrinaire libertarians.

Oct 26, 2007 - 9:00 am BC Buddy:

Not a snark but a serious question:

Does Paul inherit the imperial powers of GWB when he attains the Presidency? And if so, what diffference will it make WHO’S in the WH? You’ll still have a Democratic Congress passing bills, Paul vetoing, and nothing getting done. Just like now.

Oct 26, 2007 - 11:59 am Hugh Haynsworth:

I am a proud Libertarian, have been since 1980 where I pounded doors and stuffed mailboxes with Clark literature. I want to remind everyone that we are THE Party of the Flat Tax. I also represent the moderate (and apparently lonely wing) of the party. Stephen Green, it is people like you and me who must stick by the party and run for office under its banner. Why? Because our party has the BEST solutions for America, and is the only party the backs the Constitution. I am not happy with our Foreign Policy, but I understand it. I still think we belonged in Afghanistan, and still belong there.

Oct 26, 2007 - 12:03 pm Chris Moffet:

Grew up republican, went libertarian after high school, never could handle the dems (don’t need big bro watching my every move), confess no political affiliation now. About 8 sentences from the end of Green’s post describes my sentiments of the political industry for decades. Wrong and corrupt, stupid and corrupt, lost common sense. All these years and there is still no one I could truly vote my conscious for - and no one in the lineup ahead. What happened to statesmen?

Oct 26, 2007 - 12:44 pm NJ:

Well, way for you to miss the point while trying to point out someone else missing the point. If you believe Muslims extremism started in 1953, you’re woefully ignorant. Furthermore, Muslims extremism was NOT in response to US policy…AT ALL. NEVER until they felt it convenient to blame the US. The Muslim Brotherhood, the first extremist organization was formed in 1929 (Qutb - a committed Marxist) in response to British occupation. Then, much like a retarded child with ADD, their focus has shifted to whatever “big dog” they’re facing at that moment and blame them for ever societal/economic woe. After the British, it was the French. And then Israel. And now the US/Israel/Whomever-isn’t-a-socialist-thug.

Oct 26, 2007 - 1:06 pm Don Ryon:

Libertarian is the most logical of all Governmental philosophies. If we could abolish taxes, or at least reduce them to around a 5% flat tax, this would lead to an economic revival. Some argue this would lead to 5% of the population having 90% of the wealth. Even if that were true, what’s wrong with that? I’d rather entrust Rupert Murdoch with our societies wealth than Hillary Clinton! Anyone heard of Andrew Carnegie? A truly great and giving American!

Oct 26, 2007 - 7:17 pm Dan:

I too was captivated by the libertarian movement, and became a “card carrying” member, but it happened to me back in the mid 70’s in high school and college in Oregon. A friend of my father’s gave me a pamphlet from a candidate in California and it sounded so right to my idealistic ears. I read Ayn Rand and even helped with a campaign for a Libertarian candidate for Congress. The first thing that disenchanted me with the LP was that they seemed more interested in infighting and keeping political purity within their ranks than in winning elections. By the time Reagan was running for president, I realized what he was saying was close enough to the ideal (as compared to the biggest competition - Carter) to get my vote. Two major issues have moved me away from the LP. The first was when I realized what abortion really was, the second was the 9/11 attacks. I still look to libertarians as a choice when the main two options are Republicrats.

Oct 26, 2007 - 11:16 pm Sarnac:

I wish I could vote Libertarian … but:

1: In our winner-take-all voting system, the only sane strategy is to vote optimally against the major candidate you fear most.

Nowadays, that means choosing between voting against the pacifist totalitarian socialist or against the militarist theocrat capitalist. (I vote against the socialist.)

2: Every Libertarian voter I know personally has a laser-like focus on ending the drug war, presumably for self-interested reasons.

The last time drugs were absolutely legal, a gigantic portion of the country was addicted (40+%? … in the late 1800s).

3: Every loud Paulite Libertarian today seems to be an isolationist, protectionist pacifist black-and-white absolutist thinker with no concept of:
* Wahibbism,
* Twelvers,
* the disasters of 20th Century US isolationism,
* the dangers of gengineered biowarfare agents preparable by bio/med grad students
* today’s 3 Hitlers: Putin, Chavez and Achmadenijad
* the need for pre-emption in the coming technological era of untraceable first bioweapon strikes that are the first sign that your adversary has converted from biomed to biowar
* isolationism looks indistinguishable from weakness … and weakness encourages Hitlerian / Jihadi aggression and attacks, even / especially if by proxy.

Under Paulite/Buchananite foolish isolationism, our adversaries will be encouraged to test the limits of our unwillingness to help our ex-allies in the middle-east, Asia and Europe.

Iran then gets nukes by helping overthrow Musharraf/Bhutto in Pakistan (Iran gets half of Pakistan’s nuclear warheads / missiles in return for helping the Taliban take over) … then Israel is nuked with one or more smuggled Pakistani bombs (a nuke on the WestBank border would be enough to contaminate enough of Israel to cause massive problems, without even smuggling it into TelAviv) … then Israel nukes both Iran and Pakistan, sending countless ecstatic Jihadis to their 72 virgins.

Reasonably assuming the entire middle-east glows radioactively shortly thereafter, the world oil supplies are cut in half,, so ignoring all the dead Israelis (as the isolationists would) the US is still affected as energy and transportation costs double or quadruple or more.

Al Gore is thrilled to see less hydrocarbon consumption (but granted, he won’t be happy at _how_ it came about).

Putin and Chavez will be thrilled as their incomes increase 10-fold (transport/energy costs are not 100% oil$ so they went up a smaller multiple than the $/barrel).

China will be miserable as they are VERY oil/energy pinched and will look at nearly-un-populated Siberia as an opportunity.

China will probably have taken back Taiwan already, but it will have been a heavy-bombardment fight with inaccurate Chinese missiles bombarding the island into submission since the Taiwanese will have stopped the troop-carrier-fleets with weapons the US sold them earlier … much of the world’s electronics production capacity will be damaged (further hurting the IT-heavy US economy already strained by $700+/bbl oil and the insane trade disaster caused by the isolationist nuts)

I could go on like this for a while … but why bother going beyond their first 100-days in office?

Isolationist protectionists scare me more than Hillary in the White House.

I would vote for a Glenn-Reynolds or Neal-Boortz style libertarian for president ahead of anyone else … and I would vote for even a despised socialist ahead of an isolationist in today’s world.

If I trust Hillary to be anything, it’s violent and interventionist.

Oct 27, 2007 - 7:49 am ObsidianOrder:

YES! Yes, dammit. What you said. There is actually a term for people like you and me: neolibertarian. I felt tremendous relief when I found that this view is not unique.

“too little room for principle in such a violent world” - I disagree. I think neolibertarianism is far more logically consistent, and principled, than isolationist libertarianism. If freedom is such a good idea, why not freedom everywhere? And if getting that to happen takes going to war, so be it. Non-initiation of violence? Sure, those governments (Saddam, Mugabe) and gangs (Darfur) are already at war with the local population, anything we do would be just a response to that and not “initiation” (a view also expressed for example here). Small government? Sure, if our government grows by (for example) 500,000 more people in the military and $100 billion per year, but their government goes from a totalitarian dictatorship to a more-or-less democracy, that’s a huge net decrease. In this way, not only is neolibertarianism consistent, it is actualy far more libertarian - albeit in a steely-eyed, unflinching, count-the-bodies way - than the isolationist position of the libertarian party today.

Morally, isolationism is selfish - again, if freedom here, why not everywhere? Lines on a map seem like a paltry reason for some people to be free and others not. It should also be noted that America has a long and honored tradition of bringing freedom around the world, often at gunpoint, and often with far more “collateral damage” than what we are seeing today. Pragmatically, isolationism does not work in the 21th century - it may have worked in the 19th, but at some point in between the world shrank so much that nobody and nothing can truly be isolated. Today, isolationism is simply passivity. (As an aside, the Islamists/Wahhabists are keenly aware that no society can be truly isolated, and also that if they do not go on the offensive, in a mere generation the American cultural barrage blasted over satellite, radio, tv and everything else - Britney & McDonalds, “democracy, whiskey and sexy” - will render them entirely irrelevant; and this barrage is impossible to censor or block, unless it is stopped at the source; this is why they attack us, not “just because we exist”).

The alternative to isolationism is an unapologetic, unflinching, selfless dedication to furthering freedom everywhere, by any means from economic and diplomatic, to propaganda, to fomenting and directly assisting rebellions, to assassination of dictators, to destruction of government facilities, to outright military invasion. Unapologetic - we do not need UN approval, or sanction from anyone or anything other than all the dead in the mass graves in whatever hell-hole we may go into. Unflinching - people will die as a result of what we do, and most of them will be innocent, but a lot fewer will die than if we do nothing. Selfless - it will cost astronomically, both in American lives and in money, but we will pay whatever it takes. And above all, we will not apologize for any of it.

Oct 28, 2007 - 7:06 am ObsidianOrder:

Sarnac, you say “The last time drugs were absolutely legal, a gigantic portion of the country was addicted (40+%? … in the late 1800s).” - any source for this? It is simply not true. Yes, a small percentage people have a natural propensity for getting addicted to whatever is available, and guess what, they are already addicted now despite any laws against it. But that is a fairly small percentage (2%?). Now, there is an economic incentive to push more people into it. Take that away and I believe the numbers will shrink considerably.

Oct 28, 2007 - 7:23 am Will Becker:

Sounds to me like you’re still over the fence,Stephen.Better get your head straight to the right.

Oct 28, 2007 - 2:43 pm Stormy Dragon:

>but the Libertarians didn’t seem

>all that interested in spreading

>liberty

This seems like the old Democrat charge that Republicans against welfare programs because they hate the poor.

Libertarians are all for spreading liberty. They just don’t think that the neoconservative’s desire to spread liberty by government fiat is any more likely to work than the socialist’s desire to spread prosperity by the same means.

Oct 28, 2007 - 4:14 pm bob:

I love this comment from the last post. It’s (libertarianism) a purely intellectual trifle. And Ron Paul is 100% wacko.”

Hmmm,, 100 percent wacko. I am assuming this was written by a so called conservative. Abolishing the IRS and the dept of education would certainly iritate someone who votes for a read my lips, no new taxes and a No Child Left Behind(every child gets it in the behind) politician. Every republican running for president will basically lie to you and increase government intrusion into your life and government spending, but then again, that is basically what the republican party stands for nowadays.

Oct 28, 2007 - 5:11 pm Stiletto Red:

You can reduce the campaign to relatively simple terms by considering which candidate will best represent you. The candiate supported by big business, pharma, insurance, banking, defense, Wall Street, etc, or one who is financed by “we the people.”

Oct 28, 2007 - 10:58 pm Bmoon:

Stephen,
I had no idea I was amongst so many fellow travellers until I read your essay and the comments. I read “Atlas Shrugged” when I was 14 in ‘69, and was immediately captivated at the joyous, rational, and liberating spirit of Rand’s worldview, in stark contrast with the degrading, bleak, clownish spirit of the times. I still have the first copies of the Objectivist and Reason magazine in a box somewhere in the attic (any collectors interested?) and campaigned for Ron Paul’s first bid back in the 70’s before I could vote. By the end of that sorry decade, I had come to terms with the reality of evil - in myself and in others - a very hard lesson to learn. My worldview took on a simultaneously more bleak and more hopeful turn at discovering the message of Jesus Christ. My first vote, like so many hundreds of thousands of simularly awakened youth at the time, was for Ronald Reagan.

And so, here we are a few decades later in a far worse crisis than the sordid 60’s and 70’s represented, fools to the left of us, jokers to the right….

Let us pray.

Oct 29, 2007 - 7:57 am Laika's Last Woof:

“The candiate supported by big business, pharma, insurance, banking, defense, Wall Street, etc, or one who is financed by …”

Trial lawyers, labor unions, Gulfstream environmentalists, MoveOn.org, and Norman Hsu?

Oct 29, 2007 - 12:46 pm J.R. Enfield:

Once a person fully understands and accepts the founding ideas of “cult of the omnipotent state” and the “non-aggression principle” there is no going back, philisophically. Those guys who once signed the pledge and now laugh at it are not important to our cause anymore. Forget em’ and move on.

Oct 30, 2007 - 6:20 am ex-Libertarian:

“non-aggression principle” = submit to terrorists?

“non-aggression principle” = submit to slavery?

“non-aggression principle” = submit to sharia?

“non-aggression principle” = allow dictators to enslave?

NEVER!

“Libertarians” today favor the South and slavery in the Civil War.

“Libertarians” today were the same useful idiots who waved Viet Cong flags in the 1970s and cheered the invasion of South Vietnam as a “death of a state” (never mind the millions killed and oppressed).

“Libertarians” today oppose the United States as “the most evil State in history.” Yes, the US is a State. But it is not the most statist.

“Libertarians” today oppose “Empire” even though the US is not an empire and real empires, e.g. British Empire and Roman Empire, spread rule of law, freedom and prosperity (relatively speaking for historical period).

“Libertarians” today support the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, as they opposed these regimes overthrow in WW2 and the Cold War. HOW IS THIS LIBERTARIAN?

Oct 30, 2007 - 7:07 am J.R. Enfield:

“non-aggression principle” = submit to slavery?

“non-aggression principle” = submit to sharia?

“non-aggression principle” = allow dictators to enslave?>>

Don’t believe that it means any of that and obviously,at one time, you did not either if you are an ex “L”ibertarian and you actually signed the pledge. But now in the throws of war, which was entered unconstitutionally, its very easy to throw that kind of banter back and forth and prey upon people’s patriotism. I am proud to be a card carrying Libertarian and fully stand by the pledge that I signed when I joined.

Oct 30, 2007 - 8:06 am ex-Libertarian:

“I am proud to be a card carrying Libertarian and fully stand by the pledge that I signed when I joined.”

Yup, and so did every “libertarian” who waved Vietcong flags and cheered on the overthrow of the Shah. I know, because I saw them do this. I’m sure you are very proud of yourself. Your stupid pledge is a pledge for slavery of many of our fellow human beings.

Oct 30, 2007 - 8:37 am ex-Libertarian:

Overthrowing dictators is “non-aggression” you dolt!

Protesting their overthrow is not.

Oct 30, 2007 - 8:41 am J.R. Enfield:

>>Overthrowing dictators is “non-aggression” you dolt!>>

Going into foreign countries and removing their dictator and then installing ones that are friendly to us and our policies is “non-aggression”?? And you are calling me a dolt. All you waritarians kill me!!

Oct 30, 2007 - 9:41 am NJ:

All of you pacifists kill me. No, you kill others. Your “non-aggression” has led to more deaths in this world than actual wars. Your non-aggression has led to more destruction in this world than any war. Your non-aggression (AKA pussification) had led to the rise of more dictators in this world than any war. Your non-aggression has led to lowly dictators pushing the limits and patience of the international community provoking war.

In a nutshell, you’re what’s wrong in this world. You’re a pacifist because you’re unprincipled. You’re unprincipled because you have no spine; you’re unable to stand up and fight because you depend on those of us who have spines.

Oct 30, 2007 - 12:11 pm Ex-Libertarian:

“foreign countries” ???

So you are saying that dictatorships have sovereignty? That dictators have property rights over a whole nation? That dictators OWN the people they rule?

And this SLAVERY you endorse is something you call “non-agression”?

You can stick that pledge somewhere dark….

Oct 31, 2007 - 6:52 am Shirley Vandever:

This sounds eerily similar to my own Libertarian-Republican-Libertarian transformations. At least I know I am not alone !

I seem to remember actually being registered Democrat at one time in my wayward youth (possibly due to family influence), but those days are long gone.

I, too, am unsure as to who to support in this election. My heart goes with Ron Paul, but I would be, as you say, supporting another losing candidate. But should that be the issue? I struggle, oh how I struggle.

Oct 31, 2007 - 8:31 am Laika's Last Woof:

Being against “aggression” is like being against the number 13.

Oct 31, 2007 - 4:15 pm ObsidianOrder:

Ex-Libertarian: “So you are saying that dictatorships have sovereignty? That dictators have property rights over a whole nation? That dictators OWN the people they rule?” EXACTLY. Dictatorships do not have sovereignty, since sovereignty comes from the consent of the governed. Except, that is, in bizarro UN-world in which dictatorships are actually the majority of “countries” (100 out of 192).

Oct 31, 2007 - 5:01 pm

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I Was a Card-Carrying Libertarian: Confessions of a Black Sheep Republican

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