Reforming the Libertarian Party

[CCTelander]

Anyone who knows me knows that I believe that electoral politics is almost completely worthless as a means to advance the cause of liberty.

The idea that you're going to get a bunch of "liberty candidates" elected to positions of power and then use that power to drag the general populace into a state of liberty (whether they want it or not) is, at best, extremely problematic on various levels. It'll never happen, and if it did, it wouldn't be liberty.

Likewise the idea that you can use political campaigns as a tool to "wake up" or educate significant numbers of people to any reasonable level is one I've never been completely convinced of. After what I've seen in this election cycle, I'm pretty much totally convinced that the idea is untenable.

However, since it's apparent that most liberty advocates are not yet ready to give up their addiction to electoral politics and devote their energies to activities that might be more profitable, and probably won't be ready to do so any time soon, it's probably a good idea to find any available methods of getting the absolute most that can possibly be gotten out of it. I believe that L. Neil Smith's insights below would be a VERY good place to start.

Reforming the Libertarian Party
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com


Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

I recently joined a group, the LP Radical Caucus, that was new to me, and one of the things they asked on their Facebook page was what ideas, if any, did I have for straightening out what's wrong with the Party. I've had many such ideas for years. The following essay is my answer.

I joined the Libertarian Party forty-three years ago, in 1972, the first full year the Party existed. Although I became lifelong friends with founder David F. Nolan, knew a couple other founders, and lots of famous folks associated with the Party, it soon became apparent to me that there were many potentially fatal flaws in its structure and organization.

To begin with, Dave told me that the LP was copied after the national Young Republicans. I believed then, and continue to believe to this day, that if you accept such a limitation, you won't be able to keep from acting like a Republican, and believe me, to get what we want to make of society, libertarians must learn not to act like Republicans.

For years, obsessed with achieving "respectability", the LP embarrassed itself by mindlessly imitating Republicans and Democrats, never realizing that a third party is a different sort of animal, that must achieve product differentiation by flamboyance and confrontation. A third party, especially a brand new third party, has no other capital.

Except, of course, the truth.

During the years of my greatest activity, the LP, governed by its comic relief National Committee, closely resembled a high school student government, with many of the same petty social jealousies and conflicts. The committee tended to try to guess what potential voters might think, instead of simply doing and saying what was right. A full and frank disclosure of what libertarians actually believe was thought to be too much for Mrs. Grundy, living in Peoria, so we all must soft-pedal it. The clever idea was to try to fool people into becoming free.

In time, this miserable substitute for an electoral strategy came to be called by its proponents "pragmatic", a ridiculous notion that I discredited thoroughly twice by running the most radical—by which I mean "true to our roots"—campaigns, staunchly refraining from ever pulling any ideological punches, and achieving totally unprecedented results.

My campaigns consisted of prepared speeches, telling groups what they didn't want to know—I called it the "2x4 between the eyes approach"—telling liberal university women, for example, about our position on guns, and then assuring them that that was the worst they would have to hear, and that we libertarians had reached our radical conclusions about womens' rights by just the same kind of reasoning. I told conservatives about our position on drugs. I told old people that they has been defrauded by Social Security and that there wasn't a damn thing the LP could do about it but abolish taxation and economic regulation to generate a vastly more prosperous, survivable future.

At the same time, I avoided conventional "wisdom" about such matters as clothing, never wearing a necktie, preferring a leather sportcoat, a western shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, instead. I showed voters what their lives could be like—what groceries and other commodities would cost, in a tax-free, regulation-free society. Unlike all the other candidates, I made my audiences growl at me, laugh with me, and, most of all, remember me. Regrettably, my results were "alibied away" by Party leaders who ignored or refused to learn from them.

At about the same time, well before personal computers or the Internet would have made it easier, I was laboriously writing and speaking passionately about the changes that my wife (and partner and accomplice) Cathy and I strongly believed needed to be made to the Party.

Its principle problem was that in a highly unlibertarian way, it was overly centralized, as if its leaders wanted to be Kings of the Libertarians. Nobody who was considered by them to be "uncool" had a prayer of seeing his ideas even considered by the Party's august rulers. Their sublime arrogance and stupidity was best illustrated by headquartering the Party in the Watergate, infamously associated across "flyover country" with Richard Milhous Nixon and his criminal gang.

Fully as bad was the decision to place the LP in Washington, D.C., the bitter focus of everything we opposed politically. The excuse always given was access to the media—more likely to fashionable cocktail parties. But the parasitic press will always scuttle along behind you if you do newsworthy things. Better to place libertarian headquarters in real America, the center of the country, say, Omaha. Instead of a cramped but expensive suite in a notorious location, make it an answering machine in a closet. Or these days, an inexpensive laptop.

The Party's biggest problem, the National Committee, spending unearned resources extorted from the state parties like drunken Democrats, would be abolished. It would be replaced by a Congress of State Chairs, who are elected by the grass roots, are accesible, know what campaigns need most, and have a better idea what's really going on in the whole country. This Congress would meet at every national convention.

There would be one of those every year, giving more party members more time to meet each other, to participate in convention business, to devise various schemes, and generally to get a social leg up on Republicans and Democrats. These conventions would always be held in our weakest states, leaving a stronger state organization behind. The best part of this plan is that the Party could nominate immediately following the most recent election, giving us four years to make our candidate's name and face familiar to the media and the public. Whenever anything politically significant happened, voters would know exactly what the Libertarian Party candidate would do and why. This would be aided by a permanent program to produce weekly press statements.

All during the period that I was most active in the LP, it was almost impossible to get copies of the national platform to distribute so that people would understand what real libertarians really stand for. Cringing weaklings among the party leadership were ashamed of a simple, direct, declaration of principle. More recently, the great platforms of the late 70s, which I helped to write, were savagely raped by the "pragmatists", leaving nothing but unattractive pap behind.

It's been a number of years, but one Carl Milstead, as I recall, was chief among the platform buggerers. He bragged about it openly, dismissing those who opposed his acts of vandalism as "purists" and was perversely proud of it, never realizing the wreckage he was making of the efforts of far better men and women than he could ever hope to be. Today, if he were on fire, I wouldn't cross the street to piss him out.

Parallel with the GOP, we're infested by LINOs who thoughtlessly and unoriginally adopted the Statue of Liberty—which I call "The Hollow Woman"—as a symbol because one or two people thought the old "Libersign", devised by award-winning advertising man Dave Nolan, looked fascistic. I deeply dislike the porcupine—porcupines are stupid. I greatly prefer the highly intelligent and mischievous skunk—equally a creature of pure defense—upside-down in full battle array.

My experience as a candidate taught me that the more openly frank libertarians are about what they stand for, the more enthusiastic the audience and the higher the vote totals. Don't let anybody tell you differently. People sought me out after the election to tell me that they disagreed with me about a lot, but voted for me because I spoke the truth. These are not times for timidity, or for censoring ourselves.

Dum vivimus, vivamus!


Celebrated and award-winning author of over 30 books and countless shorter pieces, L. Neil Smith is available, at professional rates, to write articles and speeches for you or your organization, providing that our principles are compatible. Contact him at lneil@netzero.com.

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2016/tle853-20160103-02.html

[Peace&Freedom]

I don't believe the Ron Paul campaigns of 2008 would have exploded into being without the kind of "wake up" preparations of the grassroots that LP campaigns had seeded in the years/decades prior. This kind of contribution can't be measured across a single election cycle. Newcomers in 2007 had missed the LP's developmental years, and the prior excitement of the Harry Browne years, etc. Not noting this, too many in the Paul movement adopted a kind of microwave construct that with the right national candidate, all the other problems could be solved in short order. Paul supporters just said to the long-slaving and broader liberty movement, "hi, we'll take it from here," and presumed a superiority and competence over the rest of the grassroots they never established in fact.

What excited people about Paul was he was a solid libertarian running a "third party' style campaign in a major party race, thus his message could not be shut out, marginalized or compromised. The establishment stopped him by simply porting the marginalization techniques they had used on the minor parties over to soft-or-hard blacking out Paul in the GOP primary race. This backfired on the elite, however, because the higher visibility of the major party race caused more people to notice what was going on. That in turn woke more people up to the issue of what does the movement need to do, to defeat this establishment?

The LP, like all other third parties in America, is mainly constrained from growth by this kind of structural suppression of political alternatives built into the election system by the elite special interests. This elites controls both major parties, monopolizes power through them, and alternative movements are either compromised/co-opted into one of the majors, or marginalized into irrelevance. In the post Paul era, I see the LP serving as a major vetting system for fielding liberty candidates, in addition to running educational campaigns. From this available pool of vetted with campaign experience, the movement could run them in fusion candidacies (e.g., LP/CP/GOP) that overcome the structural barriers to getting alternatives elected (mainly by running them in open seat or special election situations).

This kind of leapfrogging over the system requires at least a loose alliance between liberty people across the major party and minor party spectrum, with the grassroots cooperating with each other regardless of their party preference, and intellectual libertarians working with populist liberty trends. Such a coalition existed under the unity provided by the Pauls, but has become frayed by the current cycle, with much of the LP and RP universes retreating from engaging the populists. If this continues, the movement will either disintegrate altogether, or the populist alt-right might decide to invade and take over the LP, as one means to re-forge the alliance.

[69360]

The LP is polling the highest it ever has and getting the most media coverage it ever has. The LP will surely be getting it's highest vote totals ever in the upcoming election.

I don't think they need to reform a thing.

[Suzanimal]

Anyone who knows me knows that I believe that electoral politics is almost completely worthless as a means to advance the cause of liberty.

At this point, I agree. However, if Rand, Massie, or Amash ran in my state/district, I would vote for them even considering I don't always agree with them. When Ron Paul ran, I voted even though I was never under the delusion that he could actually win. I think those votes are important because they bring attention and, hopefully, media coverage.

The idea that you're going to get a bunch of "liberty candidates" elected to positions of power and then use that power to drag the general populace into a state of liberty (whether they want it or not) is, at best, extremely problematic on various levels. It'll never happen, and if it did, it wouldn't be liberty.

You are correct but I think that having people (very few, mind you) that speak up against things like the FED, mass surveillance, taxes, war....who get face time on the news is important. It's my hope that someone hears Ron Paul on a news blurb and googles him.

Likewise the idea that you can use political campaigns as a tool to "wake up" or educate significant numbers of people to any reasonable level is one I've never been completely convinced of. After what I've seen in this election cycle, I'm pretty much totally convinced that the idea is untenable.

I disagree but you need the right candidate.

However, since it's apparent that most liberty advocates are not yet ready to give up their addiction to electoral politics

It's a hobby. I'm not crafty and I can't stay drunk all the time....Plus, it gives me something to bitch about.

and devote their energies to activities that might be more profitable, and probably won't be ready to do so any time soon, it's probably a good idea to find any available methods of getting the absolute most that can possibly be gotten out of it. I believe that L. Neil Smith's insights below would be a VERY good place to start.

I totally agree.


Great quote.vvv Reminds me of the advice Tom Woods gave the LP in his speech at the convention. Too bad they didn't listen.

My experience as a candidate taught me that the more openly frank libertarians are about what they stand for, the more enthusiastic the audience and the higher the vote totals. Don't let anybody tell you differently. People sought me out after the election to tell me that they disagreed with me about a lot, but voted for me because I spoke the truth. These are not times for timidity, or for censoring ourselves.

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2016/tle853-20160103-02.html

[CCTelander]

The LP is polling the highest it ever has and getting the most media coverage it ever has. The LP will surely be getting it's highest vote totals ever in the upcoming election.

I don't think they need to reform a thing.

Yes, and those high polling numbers and high vote totals might actually mean something if they reflected an increase in interest in liberty by the general public. The media coverage, likewise, might be terriffic if it was focusing the public's attention on liberty. But for these to be the case the LP would have to be promoting something that actually resembled, I don't know, liberty? Sadly, that simply isn't the case. No lasting good will come from it all. Just still more of the same, a different brand of authoritarianism for the gullible to lap up.

[CCTelander]

At this point, I agree. However, if Rand, Massie, or Amash ran in my state/district, I would vote for them even considering I don't always agree with them. When Ron Paul ran, I voted even though I was never under the delusion that he could actually win. I think those votes are important because they bring attention and, hopefully, media coverage.

I made an exception to my not voting rule to vote for Ron in the primaries, but that's the last time.

I've been at this liberty activism thing for 40+ years. During that time I've seen virtually every electoral strategy tried, and without fail every election cycle things continue to get worse. Even when there are good things happening like concealed and "constitutional" carry being passed in lots of places, or pot legalization, it's never enough to outweigh the bad.

ETA: Those good things are almost never the result of electoral politics anyway. Usually they result from people somehow putting pressure on those who have already attained office. So those don't even count as plusses in favor of electoral politics, but for some other form of activism.

Voting has had 236+ years to prove itself here in these United States. All it's done is make things worse.

You are correct but I think that having people (very few, mind you) that speak up against things like the FED, mass surveillance, taxes, war....who get face time on the news is important. It's my hope that someone hears Ron Paul on a news blurb and googles him.

It can't hurt, but in the final analysis, it never seems to do any substantive, lasting good.

I disagree but you need the right candidate.

I might have agreed with you back in 2008, at least guardedly, while I was still caught in the euphoria of having it SEEM like Ron was waking up so many people. But I always had reservations, and having seen so many of those people Ron was supposed to have woken up turn into Bernie Bros, or supporting Trump or even Johnson has pretty much confirmed my reservations for me.

In order for people to truly embrace the concept of liberty, it requires that they possess and internalize a certain amount of fundamental philosophy and information. It's impossible to acquire that from a brief political campaign, and the overwhelming majority of people will never take the initiative to acquire that knowledge and understanding on their own.

Political campaigns are a lot like motivational speeches in that regard. They may get people all worked up for a short time, but it doesn't last. If there aren't people in their lives to help flesh out the fundamentals of the philosophy, it just doesn't stick. It's a shotgun approach, and those are notoriously ineffective and inefficient.

It's a hobby. I'm not crafty and I can't stay drunk all the time....Plus, it gives me something to bitch about.

Everybody needs a hobby. I prefer fornication. At least then, when I get screwed, I wind up with a smile on my face.

I totally agree.


Great quote.vvv Reminds me of the advice Tom Woods gave the LP in his speech at the convention. Too bad they didn't listen.

Agreed.

[69360]

Yes, and those high polling numbers and high vote totals might actually mean something if they reflected an increase in interest in liberty by the general public. The media coverage, likewise, might be terriffic if it was focusing the public's attention on liberty. But for these to be the case the LP would have to be promoting something that actually resembled, I don't know, liberty? Sadly, that simply isn't the case. No lasting good will come from it all. Just still more of the same, a different brand of authoritarianism for the gullible to lap up.

Oh give it a rest. Johnson and Weld aren't that bad. Considering their opponents, they are great. Nobody taking the positions they have has ever done this well.

[John F Kennedy III]

The LP is polling the highest it ever has and getting the most media coverage it ever has. The LP will surely be getting it's highest vote totals ever in the upcoming election.

I don't think they need to reform a thing.

They are running a burning pile of authoritarian garbage as their candidate. How can you say they don't need to reform anything?

[donnay]

Yes, and those high polling numbers and high vote totals might actually mean something if they reflected an increase in interest in liberty by the general public. The media coverage, likewise, might be terriffic if it was focusing the public's attention on liberty. But for these to be the case the LP would have to be promoting something that actually resembled, I don't know, liberty? Sadly, that simply isn't the case. No lasting good will come from it all. Just still more of the same, a different brand of authoritarianism for the gullible to lap up.

I absolutely agree!

[CCTelander]

Oh give it a rest. Johnson and Weld aren't that bad. Considering their opponents, they are great. Nobody taking the positions they have has ever done this well.

Johnson and Weld only appear to be "great" because their opponents are so horrendously bad.

Forced vaccinations are NOT "great."

Smoking bans are NOT "great."

Carbon taxes, or "fees" or whatever are NOT "great."

Gun control of any kind is NOT "great."

Forcing people to bake cakes at gunpoint is NOT "great."

Any one of those is plenty of reason to rule a candidate out as a "liberty candidate." Johnson simply lacks any really firm grasp of the fundamental philosophy of liberty. Period.

[nikcers]

Johnson and Weld only appear to be "great" because their opponents are so horrendously bad.

Forced vaccinations are NOT "great."

Smoking bans are NOT "great."

Carbon taxes, or "fees" or whatever are NOT "great."

Gun control of any kind is NOT "great."

Forcing people to bake cakes at gunpoint is NOT "great."

Any one of those is plenty of reason to rule a candidate out as a "liberty candidate." Johnson simply lacks any really firm grasp of the fundamental philosophy of liberty. Period.

I don't even believe the republicans or the democrats are better then Gary Johnson on one issue so what I say is-If we ever want a real candidate to run on the libertarian platform we need to have high turnout. You know the reason why Ron Paul would say he wasn't running libertarian?

He would say that they don't get a fair shake, no one will turn out for a "spoiler". Or that they don't get in the debates. The scam is there is no spoiler, the scam is there won't be turnout for Republicans or Democrats this year. We could put the libertarian party on the map, or we can make America "great". You can vote for the statist candidate or the deep state candidate but I am going to vote for the alternative that's on all 50 ballots.

[John F Kennedy III]

Johnson and Weld only appear to be "great" because their opponents are so horrendously bad.

Forced vaccinations are NOT "great."

Smoking bans are NOT "great."

Carbon taxes, or "fees" or whatever are NOT "great."

Gun control of any kind is NOT "great."

Forcing people to bake cakes at gunpoint is NOT "great."

Any one of those is plenty of reason to rule a candidate out as a "liberty candidate." Johnson simply lacks any really firm grasp of the fundamental philosophy of liberty. Period.

Well said.

[Rad]

Perhaps the nature of the beast will frustrate reform. Could a liberty minded oligarch run as an independent?

[fcreature]

The Libertarian party has a lot of problems and rightfully needs to be reformed, but some of you pushing candidates like McAfee... that won't help.

[CCTelander]

It's likely that some here will be unable, or unwiling to look past Smith's comments on abortion to see the larger point, but others may not be so encumbered. Regardless, Smith's overall point is right on the mark IMO.

Seems Like Old Times
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com


Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

Operating my trusty laptop last week was like piloting a time machine. My tolerance for the subhumanity offered to the American public as Presidential timber had sunk to an all-time low. I couldn't imagine what candidates for lesser offices were like. I was thinking of Caligula. When he appointed his war-steed to the Roman Senate, it was said to be the first time a whole horse had occupied a Senate seat.

I shared my discontents with a handful of Facebook correspondents, who agreed with me, but didn't seem to have any better idea what to do about it than I had. I had known, since I was in Fourth Grade, that I was living at the end of this particular cycle of civilization (how I knew it is a whole other story) but I didn't want to be. I haven't yet given up on the idea that is America, and I wasn't quite ready to begin.

That's why I had joined the Libertarian Party in the first place, and it had always wound up in passionate arguments and discussions just like I was having now, on Facebook. What's the best strategy for getting there from here, to freedom from non-freedom? It was an eerily familiar feeling. There were a few of those, like me, who were less concerned about the number of votes we collected, than the number of folks who could be persuaded just to live their own lives, and others to whom a vote was everything—even a good excuse to fudge on your principles just a little. The latter got seriously in the way of the former.

What's more, with the generous help of an anonymous benefactor, I had recently written and published a big book, Down With Power, about what's wrong with our country and how to fix it relatively quickly and easily. The trouble was, nobody seemed to be buying Down With Power or reading it; my publisher was disconsolate, and even my contributor appeared disappointed with the result. I think he'd been expecting another For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard, or Libertarianism, by John Hospers, or The Machinery of Freedom, by David Friedman, but from the very beginning, I hadn't wanted to write just another primer, explaining what libertarianism is, but a policy book, explaining what libertarianism could do, if it was given the opportunity.

http://www.NCC-1776.org—Scroll down until you find the "bookstore".

And there was another problem: the "pragmatists", a gaggle of wonks within the Libertarian Party who cherished a number of ridiculously absurd beliefs that had long kept the Libertarian Party from achieving measurable success. These absurd beliefs had sprung into being, I think, the first day that the party existed. The first absurdity was that the "pragmatists" were somehow vastly more intelligent or far better educated than the average schlub voter who didn't belong to Mensa, and telepathically or clairvoyantly knew what the voters wanted (or didn't want) better than the voters themselves, did.

The second might be termed "Jack Nicholson's Fallacy" or "You can't handle the truth." The idea is that, somehow, the average voter, "Joe Sixpack", won't be able to tolerate the overwhelming shock of what libertarians really believe deep down inside, and so he must be lied to. People must somehow be fooled into being free. The "Pragmatists" thought it would be cute to gut the national platform of the late 1970s, and, using excuses even they knew sounded phony and malicious, remove from it any reason people might discover for voting for libertarians instead of Republicans or Democrats. The equivalent of the GOP's RINOs, they gleefully destroyed a document ten years in the making, which the editor of a major New York publisher praised as reading as if it had been written by one person. Helpless to act against these vandals, I vowed revenge—and a new comprehensive platform with which to embarrass them. Down With Power is that platform.

http://www.NCC-1776.org—Scroll down until you find the "bookstore".

I don't believe in Joe Sixpack, myself, so to disprove this utter nonsense, I ran for the Colorado State House of Representatives, against the popular six-term Speaker of the House, resolved absolutely to tell my audiences what I and most other libertarians really believed. It didn't take much resolve, in fact,it rarely does. I'm a natural-born blabbermouth.

To carry matters to extreme, I always led with the most unpopular issue. If I was speaking to a liberal group, for example, like the Association of University women, the topic was "gun control". Before they had a chance to react emotionally, I explained to them the basic process—the Zero Aggression Principle plus the Bill of Rights—by which we'd come to our conclusion, and additionally promised them it was the worst thing that they'd have to hear from me. I added that we'd used exactly the same method to arrive at our conclusions on abortion.

(A parenthetical statement is probably called for here. In 1977, Freshman Congressman Ron Paul and anti-abortion activist Doris Gordon appeared before the Libertarian National Platform Committee in San Francisco to make their plea for what many of us on the panel regarded as enslaving young women to fetuses that they didn't want. It my view, they should have been dismissed curtly, not listened to politely as they were. The LP has remained somewhat confused on the issue ever since.)

When the group was conservative, I started with drugs, made the same explanations, and wound up with guns. The toughest were groups of old people to whom I spoke about Social Security. I found that they didn't really want to impoverish or indenture their grandchildren. It helped that the core of my speech was about increasing their real purchasing power by a factor of eight, by abolishing taxes and regulations.

In an era when libertarians normally received 1.5% of the vote, I got 15%, on an expenditure of $8.00. More importantly, people came to me afterward to tell me they disagreed, but had voted for me because I'd told them the truth. made them mad, even made them laugh and cheer.

So much for "pragmatism".

I have come to believe that a major problem with these specimens is that they're timid. They're embarrassed to state plainly, and in public, what a libertarian really is—an entity who owns himself absolutely—and what he stands for—no aggression, no compromise. They erroneously assume that everybody else is just as afraid to hear that truth. This psychopathological phenomenon is known as "projection".

And of course, there are those who are simply reserving some right they erroneously imagine that they possess to beat me up (or anybody else) and kill me if it happens to serve their private or public interests.

Or, I suppose it's possible, that out of a misguided sense of opportunism, a person might become a "LINO"—a "libertarian in name only"; what advantage there might be in it, I'm totally at a loss to understand.

Whatever their reasons for being whatever they were, I wanted them all subjected to the humiliation of attempting to explain away (especially to the media) obviously libertarian ideas—although I freely confess that they may not be equipped to appreciate the irony of it. For now, I'll just be kind and leave the poltroons unnamed, but in future essays, I will indeed speak of them and their organizations by name, and, after some research, try to examine their individual motivations,

I found that I had missed that old, magical time, when the movement and its infinite possibilities were new to me. I wanted it all back, along with the spark, the thrill. I thought my own book, Down With Power—and its effect on others—might bring it back to me.

I wrote this book as a weapon of individual liberty.

http://www.NCC-1776.org—Scroll down until you find the "bookstore".

The libertarian movement as we knew it is dying; it's practically dead. If you think you want to revive the libertarian movement, if yu want to feel philosophically young again, if you want to restart the revolution, first, buy and read Down With Power. It's available on paper, electronically, or read aloud by radio personality, Brian Wilson.

http://www.NCC-1776.org—Scroll down until you find the "bookstore".

Then, if what you have read suits you, buy copies of Down With Power for your relatives and friends, for your parents, for your grandparents, for your kids, your cousins and uncles and aunts—and especially for your enemies. If the badguys get even an inkling of what they're up against, they'll advertise it in a noisy panic, far better than we could ever hope to do. I'll send a signed copy, myself, to that pack of carrion-eating jackals, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The next step is bigger: buy cartons of Down With Power, at a generous discount for your group. It's cheaper than an AK-47 or an AR-15, and more effective, because it takes on and kills the very idea of authority and initiated force. Distribute it any way you can think of. Libraries might be a place to start, and your doctor might like her waiting patients to read about separation of medicine and state.

http://www.NCC-1776.org—Scroll down until you find the "bookstore".

Finally, show up at public gatherings—especially political ones—with copies of Down With Power, its distinctive cover, in your hands. You'll be talking back to the guys who think they run things.

True, I will make money—but that's how I earn a living, how I feed my family, and libertarians are supposed to be all in favor of individual private enterprise. My small Maryland publisher—what must he think of our vaunted movement right now?—will prosper, which is extremely good news for all of us. And you'll have another shot at creating a free country after being disappointed by politics and politicians all these years. Now, instead of begging them to listen, you'll get to listen to them begging to know what's in the book.

They may ned help with the big words.

So it's time to go to work. There are 330,000,000 Americans who need to read and apply the remedies in Down With Power if America is going to survive the 21st century. You can help them decide if it will.

Down With Power click through from The Libertarian Enterprise

http://www.NCC-1776.org—Scroll down until you find the "bookstore".

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2015/tle845-20151101-02.html

[P3ter_Griffin]

I have come to believe that a major problem with these specimens is that they're timid. They're embarrassed to state plainly, and in public, what a libertarian really is—an entity who owns himself absolutely—and what he stands for—no aggression, no compromise. They erroneously assume that everybody else is just as afraid to hear that truth. This psychopathological phenomenon is known as "projection".

This completely misses the mark IMO. I have had plenty of conversations where the individual on the other end is not willing to accept the truth as the truth. Generally it is either 'taxes aren't theft' or 'it wouldn't work' (a plea for government you could say). If it were as simple as telling the truth Libertarians would win all debates, Ron Paul would be in the white house, blah blah blah. I haven't even been able to convince many RPFers that property rights should form their basis on immigration and trade (along with every other 'issue', if we can disconnect them).

And I'm not necessarily arguing for pragmatism... I am in fact banned from running for political office, at least in the state I currently reside... so I will not be up on that stage making those campaign decisions. But I think it is important to understand where the argument for pragmatism comes.

I'd note that I think pragmatism can reference several things too. We could be saying the 'pragmatic campaign' where the candidate runs not strictly on principle for whatever their reasoning, or 'pragmatic voting' where voters vote not strictly on principle for whatever reasoning.

[RJ Liberty]

The LP is polling the highest it ever has and getting the most media coverage it ever has. The LP will surely be getting it's highest vote totals ever in the upcoming election.

I don't think they need to reform a thing.

Exactly. Every day Johnson/Weld are in the news, liberty topics are being discussed in the media. Over 200 national polls have now shown that millions will be voting for Johnson/Weld (four years ago, there weren't even five national polls which included Johnson). And with millions of voters set to vote LP, the LP will receive ballot access in every state.

[fisharmor]

I haven't had a single face to face conversation with anyone who actually knows what Johnson's positions are.

I've had a few people ask me, figuring I would know. All of them were conservative Republicans.

Each time I have said: he is on record as in favor of forcing bakeries to bake gay wedding cakes, and he is on record as against laws that would allow priests to refuse to marry gays.

Thus forever ends their interest in either Johnson OR THE LP.

[P3ter_Griffin]

I haven't had a single face to face conversation with anyone who actually knows what Johnson's positions are.

I've had a few people ask me, figuring I would know. All of them were conservative Republicans.

Each time I have said: he is on record as in favor of forcing bakeries to bake gay wedding cakes, and he is on record as against laws that would allow priests to refuse to marry gays.

Thus forever ends their interest in either Johnson OR THE LP.

Well if they forsake a party for the candidate that gets put up they must be pretty squishy to consider themselves republicans.

[fisharmor]

Well if they forsake a party for the candidate that gets put up they must be pretty squishy to consider themselves republicans.

I think it was implied that they vote R only because that was the best match for their values... just like... you know... something like 90 % of everyone who votes.
And that they are showing interest in Johnson because it's clear that the two options they've been given are not aligning with their values.

So I am taking the opportunity to point out that the LP is decidedly not matching their values, either.

And I am further taking the opportunity to point out that if the LP hadn't forsaken its OWN values, then people would be looking more seriously at their candidate.

[CCTelander]

I think it was implied that they vote R only because that was the best match for their values... just like... you know... something like 90 % of everyone who votes.
And that they are showing interest in Johnson because it's clear that the two options they've been given are not aligning with their values.

So I am taking the opportunity to point out that the LP is decidedly not matching their values, either.

And I am further taking the opportunity to point out that if the LP hadn't forsaken its OWN values, then people would be looking more seriously at their candidate.

Absolutely.

[euphemia]

The Libertarian Party has already jumped the shark. Rename and rebrand with new leadership. Then buy media and start attracting viewers. Sponsor a show with Libertarian characters and story lines about real-world liberty issues, not pot and stupidity. Libertarians are long on talk and short on creativity, and they haven't a clue about where their votes come from.

[euphemia]

Behave with some dignity. Stay sober and don't stick your tongue out at an interviewer. Don't let the images be of Gary Johnson and a fat naked guy. That's just disgraceful. Talk about a proven lifestyle of liberty that works for every American. Principles are good, but they are not good enough if people can't see themselves being successful in living them out.

[P3ter_Griffin]

I think it was implied that they vote R only because that was the best match for their values... just like... you know... something like 90 % of everyone who votes.
And that they are showing interest in Johnson because it's clear that the two options they've been given are not aligning with their values.

So I am taking the opportunity to point out that the LP is decidedly not matching their values, either.

And I am further taking the opportunity to point out that if the LP hadn't forsaken its OWN values, then people would be looking more seriously at their candidate.

I took this:

Thus forever ends their interest in either Johnson OR THE LP.

to mean the LP had lost the prospect of ever gaining these individuals as voters again because of Johnson's positions.

If Johnson was saying people should be free to discriminate against blacks, christians, etc, would he still have had these guys support? There is a reason they must be republican after all, and not libertarians. So would being a principled libertarian really do anything to court them?

eta: If not it is just a pragmatic argument that the chosen candidate should not do this:

he is on record as in favor of forcing bakeries to bake gay wedding cakes, and he is on record as against laws that would allow priests to refuse to marry gays.

based on your observations.

[fisharmor]

If Johnson was saying people should be free to discriminate against blacks, christians, etc, would he still have had these guys support? There is a reason they must be republican after all, and not libertarians. So would being a principled libertarian really do anything to court them?

So I'm not totally grokking this part. Are you implying that refusing to offer goods or services to homosexuals is discrimination and is indistinct from discrimination against other groups?

In other words, that they should be able to recognize that the only philosophically consistent way to handle government interference in discrimination is to include gays along with blacks and Christians?


If so, then my response is that the people I talk to this aren't on the discrimination wavelength at all.
No matter what the state does, there is a gun backing it up. A gun which is ready to end lives.

Social conservatives aren't into discriminating against people. What is going on is, they're having a negative reaction to being the people the gun is currently pointed at.

Likewise, nobody on the social conservative side is cheering for Hobby Lobby because Hobby Lobby is "denying a woman's right to choose". They're cheering for HL because they stood up and said "We don't care how big your gun is, we take religious exception to funding abortion, and we're not going to do it."

The time for introducing these people to libertarianism has NEVER BEEN BETTER. They're looking down the barrel of a gun... a gun which libertarians aren't supposed to support.

In order to introduce them to libertarianism, someone has to... I don't know.... actually introduce them to libertarianism. But instead we get Gary Johnson literally going out of his way to tell everyone where he'd be pointing the gun... and telling them that the gun is going to be pointed at the exact same people the libtards are already pointing it at.

That is what the OP article is trying to say. Stop pussyfooting around with what the other people are doing. Nobody is looking at libertarianism because they think they're going to get the same thing that they can already get from the other two parties.
Hit them in the head with a 2x4 - tell them about the gun in the room and how we don't want to point it at anybody.

[CCTelander]

So I'm not totally grokking this part. Are you implying that refusing to offer goods or services to homosexuals is discrimination and is indistinct from discrimination against other groups?

In other words, that they should be able to recognize that the only philosophically consistent way to handle government interference in discrimination is to include gays along with blacks and Christians?


If so, then my response is that the people I talk to this aren't on the discrimination wavelength at all.
No matter what the state does, there is a gun backing it up. A gun which is ready to end lives.

Social conservatives aren't into discriminating against people. What is going on is, they're having a negative reaction to being the people the gun is currently pointed at.

Likewise, nobody on the social conservative side is cheering for Hobby Lobby because Hobby Lobby is "denying a woman's right to choose". They're cheering for HL because they stood up and said "We don't care how big your gun is, we take religious exception to funding abortion, and we're not going to do it."

The time for introducing these people to libertarianism has NEVER BEEN BETTER. They're looking down the barrel of a gun... a gun which libertarians aren't supposed to support.

In order to introduce them to libertarianism, someone has to... I don't know.... actually introduce them to libertarianism. But instead we get Gary Johnson literally going out of his way to tell everyone where he'd be pointing the gun... and telling them that the gun is going to be pointed at the exact same people the libtards are already pointing it at.

That is what the OP article is trying to say. Stop pussyfooting around with what the other people are doing. Nobody is looking at libertarianism because they think they're going to get the same thing that they can already get from the other two parties.
Hit them in the head with a 2x4 - tell them about the gun in the room and how we don't want to point it at anybody.

+rep

[undergroundrr]

Hit them in the head with a 2x4

That's a romantic metaphor, but he doesn't have a big enough megaphone to have that kind of impact.

The 2x4 can only be loaned out by Rachel Maddow and Wolf Blitzer. You're not going to get anywhere trashing the CRA.

It's great to throw around words like libtard, but a libertarian candidate has to take from both sides of the fence and all minorities, racial, sexual, whatever. Public opinion will be shaped by friendly persuasion from a place of common ground, not a 2x4 upside the head.

[euphemia]

It's great to throw around words like libtard, but a libertarian candidate has to take from both sides of the fence and all minorities, racial, sexual, whatever.

No. No. No. A true liberty lover has the advantage of truth over pragmatism, and will present a uniquely libertarian concept. Gary Johnson is nothing approaching a Libertarian, which is why he is as smarmy as any other politician. His campaign style exactly matches what he thinks about government. Whatever works. That's the wrong way to go.

[undergroundrr]

No. No. No. A true liberty lover has the advantage of truth over pragmatism,

A lover of the idea of liberty has that advantage. To be contrasted with a lover of actual liberty.

I long for liberty for my libtard friends and my conservatard friends. Perhaps you feel the same way.

[euphemia]

I'm a liberty person. Gary Johnson is not. He would use the power of government to infringe on my freedoms. He is the same as Obama and Clinton, who are not liberty people, either. All three of them have used the power of government to make themselves rich. I don't believe liberty gives some people an unfair advantage at the expense of other people. All people are created equal, and nobody should look to government to do anything other than to preserve liberty, defend the people, and punsh criminals.