This video is over an hour long, but well worth watching. As a sitting judge in Arizona, John Buttrick is a terrific illustration of the fact that we do not need to choose between being radical and getting elected. But I also think he would be the first to say that if we must choose, staying radical is more important than winning elections, because to adopt a moderate facade, or worse to actually abandon our principles, for short-term political gains is to win the battle but lose the war.
You will notice Judge Buttrick echoes several of the Five Key Values of the Grassroots Libertarians Caucus -- he argues persuasively for the Libertarian Party to embrace radicalism, a bottom-up approach, and balance in appealing to liberals no less than conservatives. Like myself, he believes that our best opportunities are at the local level, but that we cannot ignore the national Libertarian Party because of its nominees' visibility to the public and their potential misuse of the word "libertarian"; that the party is doomed if we do not change, but that the fight to retake the party and make it once again into a strong vehicle for the pro-freedom message is winnable.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))