Crossroads? Johnson/Weld vs. Invisibility?

Discussion
1

Starchild,
You make one important distinction that leads to another important distinction.

1) the difference between electing candidates and advancing liberty...as you say they are different

2) the difference between freedom and the idea of freedom

We can look at these distinctions through the lens of new additional gun laws in California, today, activating police powers over additional personal choices.

While the police powers are the same search, seizure, arrest, injury, incarceration, prosecution, fine, imprisonment, and death, today, these powers are now advance agsinst freedom.

Meanwhile, the idea of freedom
may be advanced by the pain caused by the advancement of police power, while freedom itself retreats.

Marcy is looking at the forty-year retreat of freedom, from the advancement of police-power, government-regulation, and taxation. Then there is the obvious question whether the LP is only a bystander to the end of freedom, while eagerly advancing the idea of freedom.

Depending on what you want, the LP is either a success, or pathetic, misersble failure.

This is something for the thinking, rational person to look at.

2

Wow. Need I say more? Said better than I ever could. The LP has been a bystander boasting about its "principles" for 40 years while all our freedoms are shredded. Some of us are tired of that.

Marcy

Starchild,

You make one important distinction that leads to another important distinction.

1) the difference between electing candidates and advancing liberty...as you say they are different

2) the difference between freedom and the idea of freedom

We can look at these distinctions through the lens of new additional gun laws in California, today, activating police powers over additional personal choices.

While the police powers are the same search, seizure, arrest, injury, incarceration, prosecution, fine, imprisonment, and death, today, these powers are now advance agsinst freedom.

Meanwhile, the idea of freedom
may be advanced by the pain caused by the advancement of police power, while freedom itself retreats.

Marcy is looking at the forty-year retreat of freedom, from the advancement of police-power, government-regulation, and taxation. Then there is the obvious question whether the LP is only a bystander to the end of freedom, while eagerly advancing the idea of freedom.

Depending on what you want, the LP is either a success, or pathetic, misersble failure.

This is something for the thinking, rational person to look at.

3

We Libertarian Party activists are not operating in a vacuum! Look at all the other nominally pro-freedom groups with far more resources than the LP that have been engaged in "pragmatic" politics during the past 40 years. What have they accomplished while so many freedoms in the United States have been under assault?

  The LP and its allied libertarian movement organizations have performed the invaluable function of striking at the root of evil by questioning and attacking the premises upon which the coercive assault on freedom rests, while others have mostly been content to haphazardly and inconsistently address the symptoms (inconsistently because they typically do not understand the true nature of the problem and often end up opposing freedom in the name of defending it). But as a result of the libertarian movement's relative consistency, understanding has been advancing, and I believe this has much to do with the libertarian trends we're seeing in society. It would advance further and faster if we were more consistent and principled.

  Without cultivating and cherishing the idea of freedom, we are unlikely to be able to win or preserve actual freedom on the ground.

Love & Liberty,
                               ((( starchild )))

P.S. - I do agree that the LP has sometimes been too boastful – but I think most of the party's boasting has been about things like how many Libertarians we've elected, how fast we are growing, how much publicity our candidates are getting, etc., not about how principled we are. I would be fine with zero boasting about being principled, if we could simply be principled – the boasting is useful mainly to help keep us principled (e.g. by proclaiming ourselves as the "party of principle", we are more likely to properly value being principled and operating ethically).

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
– Henry David Thoreau

4

Starchild, many Libertarian Party members have been elected to city councils in California, and other governmental elected bodies. We have also had county supervisors in Placer County and Calaveras County. Our Calaveras County supervisor, Tom Tryon, was elected in 1984 and survived until 2012, 28 long years in office. I don't think he would have been re-elected so many times if he had demanded that all county taxes be repealed.
Your e-mail suggests that there is some clear "principle", and I assume you think one of those principles is "taxation is theft." Was it unprincipled for Tom Tryon to refrain from introducing county ordinances to get rid of all county taxes? What would you do if you got elected to a city council or a county board of supervisors?
The Socialist Party had the same dilemma. It elected hundreds of public officials, many of whom were considered good, honest politicians and who got re-elected. But when they were in office, they did not propose bills to nationalize heavy industry. Was that unprincipled of them?
Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

5

Richard,

  I'm not saying Tom Tryon should have "demanded" (by which phrase I assume you mean "openly advocated, or sponsored a bill proposing") the repeal of all taxes. Neither am I convinced, however, that introducing such legislation, or speaking in favor of it, would have caused him not to get reelected. I think the jury is very much out on that. As you know, electability is the sum of a large number of variables. If a race came to be seen mainly as a referendum on whether there should be taxes or not, I assume the side advocating no taxes would lose in the present climate. However advocating radical ideas does not seem to greatly affect the vote percentages garnered by Libertarians and others, relative to otherwise similar candidates who do not advocate such ideas. I think a lot depends upon the context, how the radical ideas are couched, what else the candidate is known for, etc.

  As an organization, I think the Libertarian Party should encourage, recognize, and reward candidates, and officials, who advocate libertarianism without watering it down, and bring pressure to bear on candidates and elected officials who fail to stand up for liberty, or worse, take un-libertarian positions. I do think there is a strong tendency for candidates to be more radical when running for office than they become after they get elected, and the longer they stay in office, the less radical and more statist they tend to become, and so for this reason if no other, it's important to start with as strong a libertarian message and approach as possible. It seems to be much easier to embrace incremental progress, compromises, moderation and so on later if there is really a beneficial compromise to be struck (i.e. one that does not undermine the larger cause and render future gains for freedom more difficult), than to regain lost or abandoned radicalism.

  On an individual level, I think it's good for each of us to try to seek out situations in which we can argue for more freedom, not less. If one finds oneself arguing with people who are more pro-freedom than oneself, it may be wise to instead go and seek out contexts, conversations, and arguments with people who are less pro-freedom, where one can instead devote one's energy into arguing for more freedom. This is why I think being in the Republican Party, where most people are less pro-freedom than he is, is a better choice for an outspoken polemicist/tactician/strategist like Wayne Allyn Root than being in the LP where he was less pro-freedom than most, and where significant amounts of his energy were going toward arguing against liberty rather than for it.

Love & Liberty,
                               ((( starchild )))