One of those fantastic things that Ron Paul said, which "needed to be said," was in the Republican "values voter" debates a couple of days ago.
Our libertarian Republican hero pledged to significantly increase federal spending on "abstinence education." This will, of course, lead to smaller government, and Libertarians who disagree are being unrealistic. 
Cheers,
The ever-needling Brian
I didn't watch that debate. Got a quote and context for us?
      <<< starchild >>>
Yes Brian,
Because of this I will definately be casting my vote
whole-heartedly for the not-at-all-known, middle class
bus driver David Hollist now. A vote for Ron Paul is a
wasted vote, much more than voting for Mr. Holist or
any other LP candidate.
-TJ
--- Brian Miller <hightechfella@...> wrote:
One of those fantastic things that Ron Paul said,
which "needed to be said," was in the Republican
"values voter" debates a couple of days ago.Our libertarian Republican hero pledged to
significantly increase federal spending on
"abstinence education." This will, of course, lead
to smaller government, and Libertarians who disagree
are being unrealistic.Cheers,
The ever-needling Brian
From: Starchild <sfdreamer@...>
To: grassrootslibertarians@yahoogroups.com;
LibertarianReformCaucus@yahoogroups.com; LPSF
Discussion List <lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 2:58:17 PM
Subject: [lpsf-discuss] Some commentary from the
LPRadicals list  There are some good insights here from Dan Sullivan
and Susan Hogarth that seem worth passing along. I'd
be curious to hear any reactions people may have.
Love & Liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>> It captures something I've tried to put into
words before by
> saying that elections are a lagging, not leading,
indicator of
> public opinion. By this I mean that the winning
of an election
> should be viewed not primarily as a means of
getting power,
> but as an indication that people are already on
our side. This
> explains my concern with the current Libertarian
Party
> leadership's emphasis on winning elections - I
feel that it
> is in large part an instance of putting the cart
before the
> horse.This sums up view on the matter exactly. Being
preoccupied with
winning elections is not merely an inept way to
advance
libertarianism, but is an inept way to win
elections.If you look at people who win local elections
generally, and especially
those who do so without the support of the dominant
party's
apparatus, they do so by establishing themselves as
community
leaders before they ever run for anything. They
might champion
public issues or they might just demonstrate that
they are "all-around
good guys" to others in their church, their social
clubs, their their
business groups, etc. They listen more than they
talk, and they appear
to take other people's perspectives as seriously as
they take their own.Most of all, they show humility (feigned or real),
and indicate a
respect for the people from whom they are asking
employment. Some
of them have visions of how things could be better,
but they sell those
visions to the voters long before they announce
themselves as
candidates. The most successful politicians of all
do not appear to be
seeking office, but make it seem as if they were
pressed into service
by other members of the community who recognized
and appreciated
their attributes.Like all bureaucracies, the LP's bureaucracy
suffers from "mission
creep," Underlying that is a tendency of "teaching
for the test." What I
mean is that indicators of success (test scores)
become substitutes for
actual success, and people redefine the mission to
improve the test
scores.The most pathetic example of this is probably my
state of
Pennsylvania. If you look at the national LP's list
of elected
libertarians, we have far more than any other
state. But when you look
closer, you find that most of them are extremely
minor offices with no
policy-making function, such as inspector of
elections, etc. We have a
total of four people who sit on four municipal
councils, and the total
population of the people in those municipalities is
about 8,000.In contrast, Ohio lists zero elected officials, but
Ohio has a relatively
dynamic and spirited LP, and their candidate for
Governor helped
shape the debate there. Issue organizations are now
getting inquiries
from Ohio legislators about issues that this LP
candidate advanced.> I think that in two significant ways the attempt
to copy the electoral
> strategy of the power parties (DP and RP) is a
mistake.> First, [we lose our soul in order to gain the
world -
> abbreviated interpretation by DS]> Second, in a strictly practical sense, American
politics is
> not so constructed that an ideological party can
capture the
> segment of the voter population which is most
closely
> ideologically aligned with it. Instead, the
system here
> encourages the vast majority of voters to adopt
the 'lesser
> of two evils' approach - and this will not change
simply by
> having the LP shift a few ideological- points in
one direction
> or another (vaguely 'rightward' seems to be the
trend right
> now, though that can always change). The best
chance such a
> strategy has of working is that the LP assumes
the largely
> non-ideological place of one of the existent
power parties.
> And how would this make things better?This is what the narrow-thinkers miss. When the
socialists parties
were in their heyday, both the Democrats and
Republicans shifted
toward socialism to compete for the "new center" of
the political
spectrum. Conversely, when the LP was in its
heyday, the major
parties shifted toward libertarianism. Nationally,
leaders like LBJ and
Richard Nixon gave way to leaders like Jimmy Carter
and Ronald
Reagan.This happened at the state level as well. Our
legislators passed
excellent "home rule" legislation giving local
municipalities power
over local policies (subject to voter referenda)
while reducing state aid
to local jurisdictions.> I am not here saying that participating in
elections is a bad
> thing.Nobody is. That's a straw man set up to discredit
people who take a
broader view of the mission. Even running to win is
not a bad thing
where winning is actually feasible, and where you
aren't
=== message truncated ===
I don’t know how many of your are on Wayne’s list, but I thought his latest
editorial comment was very impressive. Whether you like the guy or despise
him, he definitely knows how to present himself, especially if you’ve seen
Michael Moore’s recent documentary about the U.S. health care system, Sicko.
Agreed...excellent!
Mike