In this article in New York Magazine, Christopher Beam lays out the many paths followed by libertarian activists in recent years. Be warned: there is significant editorializing near the end of the article. Nevertheless, it presents many interesting facts, some of which may be interesting to third party politicos. A snippet:
That’s how conservative politics is played—talk shrinkage, do growth. Even right-wing godhead Ronald Reagan expanded the federal government, bailed out Social Security, and signed off on tax hikes. Bush 43 was only the latest in a long line of Republican spenders.
It’s this hypocrisy that makes some libertarians stray outside the two-party monolith. Some gravitate toward the Libertarian Party, which calls itself the third-largest political party in the country. But few of its candidates are ever elected. Infighting can also be a turnoff. “There’s something about libertarians where working as a team is inconsistent with the whole concept of being a libertarian,” says Warren Redlich, the 2010 Libertarian candidate for governor of New York, who was sued by one of his opponents for the nomination.
Redlich is probably in a good position to comment on this infighting, considering the New York LP is currently in a bit of an internal schism.
In 14 that should read ratio, not ration. Speed typing again;)
Re Mik’s comment @ 13. This is not intended as criticism. People need to remember that we had a lot smaller government in past years if we look at the ration of GDP to government spending. We can say that government was a lot smaller, but we also had slavery in that era, women couldn’t vote and after that we had the Jim Crow laws and all kinds of other restrictions on the rights of people.
We need to be clear as to what we mean and that is not always the case.
I think both this article and the one mentioned @9 mischaracterize libertarianism to a degree. Both articles completely miss the concept that one of the fundamental lines of libertarian thought is to minimize privilege. If governmental efforts are going to secure privilege, then those efforts are not going to secure individual rights.
It is not just a question of less government, if government is securing individual rights against forces that would curtail those rights, then government should do a lot of it. Less government is not the same thing as limited government.
g10, yes. Gandhi put it well: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”
The article, I read parts of it and skimmed others, just seemed like an annoying dismissal of libertarianism. Perhaps there’s some legitimate criticism in there, but what came through more was the author telling us why he’s cool for not being a libertarian.
Right on, Libertarians’ propensity to fight internally more than fight their opponents makes New York Magazine.
I do not pretend to know the details of the NY schism, but it seems that two campaigns for governor were given less than equal treatment by the state party. My question is what did these two campaigns do to earn juice with the membership previous to the convention? Thirty something members’ votes to win the nomination does not seem like a lot for a serious candidate to overcome just by bringing in their own people… if they have people.
RC @8:
If you ask me, step two is to set an example for Libertopia, realizing it in your daily life, and encourage people to join you.
This article I’ve written explains why libertarianism is “cool” to those without power.
http://www.etherzone.com/2010/scall122510.shtml
It’s actually a pretty good article, certainly well written.
In many ways, I think Beam points to some of the challenges (inherent, possibly insurmountable) with deontological, absolutist constructs. I liked Lindsey’s idea: 1) construct libertopia in theory. 2) ? 3) achieve libertopia.
Engaging where things are — armed with a sense of a virtuous direction, a sense of what works, and a sense of what is peaceful — seems a lot more likely to produce desired results. Or, we can imagine the righteousness of blowing up buildings over a contract dispute, and proceed from there.
Tom , Thanks. That is what I thought.
Paulie makes good points. It is when people get wrapped up in ideology, doctrine, and dogma that the willingness to cooperate seems to fade away. Ideologues don’t make good members of any political party, big or otherwise.
[a] alternative folks in alternative politics, of course
[b] American ideals, from the beginning, have been faulty
[c] in a period of unbridled government growth you’d think that Libs would be the dominate political force
[d] or at least a viable cultural counter weight
[e] you’d think NGOs [non government organizations] like the Red Cross or the Olympic Committee (not counting White House Puke Jimmy Carter in 1980) would be abound, vital and in good stead
[f] If only libertarians could live up to their creed [unlike Lib Failures Edward Tessiel, Richard Rider, Bruce Cohen, Tommy Knapp, George Phillies, W. A. R …….. ]
[g] ethics, ethics, ethics: we hate it in the Democans and Republicrats,
[h] yet tolerate it in our own alternative politics
[i] ……….. I’m just sayin’
Haven’t read the full article, but there is nothing in libertarianism that is inconsistent with working as a team. The only thing that libertarianism says is that no one can be harnessed to the team wagon against their will.
It’s true that some ornery people gravitate to the Libertarian Party and other alternative parties, but that is not due to anything inherent within the libertarian world view.
Paulie
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tk, yes, I seem to recall Bill Marr saying to Ron Paul that the reason we can’t have a private health system is that the VA provides poor service. Huh? Is THAT ever ridiculous!
Statists (not in the anarchist sense of the word!) can get absurd when they get backed into a corner. I relish the absurdity, as the open-minded should be able to see the weakness of their arguments easily.
MHW@1:
It was a government fire department. More specifically, it was a city fire department.
Since the county didn’t have a government fire department, the city sold “insurance” to rural county homeowners — pay the premium, they respond to your fire calls.
The homeowner had not paid the premium, and some reports indicate that he had had at least one fire put out previously on a “complimentary this time, but you need to get that premium paid” basis.
The implications for the incident vis a vis libertarianism are precisely nil. It was entirely a matter of a government fire department refusing to operate outside its jurisdiction to help out someone it had zero obligation to, and who possibly had even scammed it previously.
In the last page the writer mentions a fire department that refused to aid a homeowner. It is not clear if that was a government fire department or a private one, or am I miss reading this?