PJ Media

Well, I’m not sure why I’m gonna wade into this, but here goes anyway. Please recognize that this is just me and not completely repersentative of all l/Libertarians, although I will admit that I wish it were.

First, the background and disclaimer. I have been an LP member sicne 2000. I walked in the door, got involved on a county-level campaign, and have never stopped since. I’ve been a county officer and a state officer. I’ve done outreach out the butt, done media, done bylaws, legislative lobbying, done treasury, all the nuts and bolts stuff. I even ran for an office once on a platform against a bond measure (I lost, but so did it, saving $46M). I’ve worked and run campaigns for others. About the only things I haven’t done is be a chairperson or run for President. I’m dedicated, but not that dedicated. I prefer to work behind the scenes. I’ve never read Rand. Never will, either. No desire to, and my own journey to libertarianism comes from the left and a lot of study into colonial America and the First Amendment. I believe in simple libertarian positions:

1. My person, my business.

2. My property, my business.

3. Your person, your business.

4. Your property, your business.

5. My business ends where yours begins.

6. I have no right, either morally or legally, to infringe with your rights.

7. Neither do you to me.

8. We as human beings have the fundamental right to make our own decisions and choices, so long as they don’t prevent others from the same.

9. Only people have rights, and they come from our existence, from birth to death.

10. Government powers are inferior to the rights of the people who used those rights to consent to those powers.

Second, there are two issues that I see people having problems here with. One is the party, and the other is the issues positions.

The problem with the LP is simple: infighting. Put two LP members in a room and you’ll get twenty or more differing opinions and each one will claim their position is ideologically more “pure” (whatever that means) than the other. This has been a major problem as long as I’ve been in the LP, and party oldtimers tell me it goes back to the beginning. I get sick of it. The LP exists to advance a libertarian public policy, not be an intellectual Auschwitz.

The problem with the platform is related: purity. Outsiders claim our positions are not doable. I disagree because they have already been done. The problem is that nobody has the political will to do them anymore. Because we’ve had multiple generations now stuck in the mentality that what we’re doing now is OK in any form, in any partial or complete level of action, libertarians, who remember or have educated themselves on what it was like in those better days (IOHOs) are considered to be on the fringe.

So what about the basic issues?

1. Private property rights? Strict enforcement also covers environmental issues and protects freedom. Also includes stopping compulsory taxation and eminent domain. What’s wrong with that?

2. Right to your own self? That includes what we eat, drink, inject, or insert. What’s wrong with that?

3. No welfare? Community and personal responsibility. We don’t see enough of that any more. That’s as much of a moral issue as it is a political and economic one. What’s wrong with that?

4. Self-defense-based neutrality? It’s worked for Swedes and Swiss among others for centuries. We don’t need to be EarthCop or BigNanny. The Founding Fathers warned us on that. We ignored them when we shouldn’t have. Let other nations be big boys and girls and go their own, even while we still trade with them. That isn’t isolationist, it’s non-interventionist. It’s global tough love and telling the rest of the world to step up. What’s wrong with that?

(Note: there are so-called libertarians that advocate pre-emotive war. They are not libertarians because they engage in the contradiction that striking first unprovoked is somehow the same as striking back in self-defense. It’s the “He hit me back first!” argument.)

I could go on, but my point is clear: people don’t seem to think it out critically and don’t seem to ask themselves the cause-effect questions and the simple ones of the Golden Rule and “how did we get to where we are?”. Some critics do, to their credit, but I haven’t seen many of those make themsevles known very well.

So are the critics of the libertarian movement right or wrong? It’s actually a lot of both. The LP is still trying to figure itself out after 35 years. That’s lousy and we should have it straight by now, but people continue to ague about it for no good reason. And in those areas its critics are perfectly justified. But that doesn’t mean we’re trying to get it right. I do the work in the LP I do to try to make things work, and it isn’t always easy. I’m willing to bet that similar problems exist in other parties, just not as magnified as the LP is because of number disparities. But on the issues, I disagree. Criticism there is warranted only if there is legitiamte reasons to back up the criticism. (“9/11 changed everything” is NOT a legitimate reason!). I don’t agree with all libertarian positions either (food labelling, elections and illegal immigration, specifically).

So are we perfect? No way. Are we trying? Yes. Do we care? Of course.

Everything else is just details arguments. But they tend to derail the effort towards the end result.

I support Dr. Paul, not because of his party affiliation in the present or the past, but because I agree with him on most issues more than any other candidate (abortion is where we part ways, but for reasons under #9 and #10 above). I see the other candidates, both D and R as advocating more government, more government, more government. I don’t want that. I want to be my own person free of all of that meddling BS. I’m sick of being the working poor because the tax burden and dollar inflation are both so high. I want to thrive, not just survive, and getting the government out of my house, wallet, and life as much as possible gets me there. I don’t see any other candidate heading there. I’m no anarchist, I’m a minarchist, and I prefer to pay as I go for only what I use.

So we’re not perfect, but we’re not moonbats, either. We have our faults, and we can certainly lose our ficus. In other words, we have the same problems you do. We just think there is a better solution than more government, because we see government as a major if not main source of those problems.