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February 10, 2004 A Call to Libertarians.... John Hawkins posts a very interesting article indeed, by one Mac Johnson... The Libertarian party is a party of principle. This fact is an enormous comfort to the party each election year when its candidates lose every major race. Being free from the burden of mattering, we can all be proud of the purity of our untested principles. OK, it is a little harsh to say that the Party does not matter. After all, occasionally one of its candidates may, in a tight race, siphon off just enough votes from the least abominable candidate to push the more abominable one over the top and on to Washington! Husah!The Quixotiesque nature of the Libertarian Party is precisely what motivated me to call myself a (small "l") libertarian, rather than Libertarian. Hey, I'd like to fly, too, but I'm not going to join the "Society for Gravity Defiance through Arm-Flapping". Ideals are nice things until they get in the way of actually accomplishing those ideals. Johnson goes on to discuss why the two-party system is so entrenched..... ...each party, in an effort to win 50% of the population's votes in every election, in every district, in every state, among every race, gender, industry, and income group, has had to turn itself into a big tent coalition consisting of individually self-interested and organized components. In effect, both parties resemble the multi-party parliamentary coalition governments of Europe.This is actually something the Libertarian Party tried to address some years back. Former Libertarian Party Chairman Jim Lark once told me of the discussion. The National Committee agreed that they needed a way to "brand" the party - to differentiate it from any other party. The problem was this: once they selected an issue, ran with it, and got popular support...the issue was simply co-opted by a major party. (meaning the Libertarian Party did all the work and the R/D's got all the voters) Obviously, that's not the key to electoral success. One might argue..."hey, at least they're getting the major parties on their issues!" One might, but one should also remember what the major parties tend to do to good ideas. Solution? Ponder, for a moment, the relative power of a 22-year-old self-declared "Vegan Ecowarrior" wearing a "Free the Cows!" T-shirt at a campus meeting for Ralph Nader, versus that same mental giant in New Hampshire at a Democratic Party Rally wearing an "I'm a Howard Deaniac" T-shirt. One is a cartoon character. The other is a future Washington staffer. It doesn't matter if Dean wins or loses. The kid is in the system.Unfortunately, conscientous objectors don't accomplish a damned thing. It's a lesson libertarians need to remember. Think of the "Moral Majority" - a relatively small group of people, which wields an unusually large amount of influence. Why? Because they're organized and they work within the Republican Party. Now, imagine libertarians holding similar influence. Then ask yourself...how are they going to do that, if they won't even play the game? |
Seems the game is rigged to lose. Reading this the first thing that comes to mind is the Healthcare mess. You have the Democrats who can adhere to their principled position of trying to use the govt take take complete control and the Republicans who pragmatically fight them by slowing expansion. Since the Republicans are not adhereing to a principle, to anyone without any economic knowledge they easily look like the bad guys.
Posted by: Frank Castle at February 10, 2004 09:03 PM