More ammo for out of system (market) activists

[Eli]

http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/967

Brad Spangler's latest blog article, on how the LP is making libertarians less libertarian, and costing the movement a great deal.

LIBER-FAIL-IAN: Minarchism and partyarchy as opportunity cost
Posted on May 6th, 2008 by Brad Spangler

The 2008 Liberty magazine poll results are out and they support something I've been talking about for the past few years and regard as crucially important for libertarians. The Libertarian Party specifically and electoral politics generally are very poor tools for the advancement of libertarian ideas if we're talking about radical (i.e. real) libertarianism. Consider the first two questions alone:

    1. There is a proper role for government, but that role is much smaller than the role government plays at present.

    Today: 89.5% agree
    20 years ago: 66% Agree

    2. Government should be eliminated altogether.

    Today: 10.5% agree
    20 years ago: 31 % agree

    Whether there should be some minimal government is one of the oldest controversies in libertarian thought. If the poll results are representative of overall libertarian opinion, the minarchists clearly are making their case more persuasively than are the anarchists.

The trendline is clearly away from anarchist sentiments. The above supposes, though, that anarchists are (and have been) making their case among the movement cross-section represented by Liberty magazines reader poll — and that it is this case which has been rejected in favor of a purported minarchist case supposedly being actively advanced. No such thing is going on at all. Rather, within the libertarian movement, anarchists are not making their case because they're busy "doing politics" and minarchists enjoy the pro-government bias inherent in existing government being the status quo.

I assert that haven't been adequately making their case because the attempt to use a political party as a vehicle for the communication of ideology results in our best and brightest people being tied up in endless platform wars with establishmentarian elements and vainly struggling to defend radicalism from smears by our worst enemies — those who want to define libertarianism out of existence by making the word come to mean something else entirely.

Perhaps the next LP executive director can be Grima Wormtongue.

The point is not merely that the libertarian movement is currently going down a wrong path, but that it has been going down the wrong path since the founding of the Libertarian Party in 1971. It's not just that YOU, Mr. & Mrs. Partyarch (you anarcho-wretches) are somehow doing something wrong. As the Liberty poll results show, the libertarian movement as it existed 20 years ago was doing something wrong. Rather than libertarians gradually winning over mainstream society to our way of seeing things, mainstream society gradually winning over libertarians to their way of seeing things.

Electoral politics FAILS. There are built-in incentives for the distortion of our ideas contained in the approach and I maintain that those incentives are inherent in the approach itself.

The solution is revolution.


Death to the Party!

Ultimately, simple economic analysis points the way. If you're busy sinking time and energy into building the Libertarian Party as an institution, you are foregoing using that time and energy to talk about anarchism. Opportunity costs do not merely arise in just financial matters, but in all decision-making.

[margomaps]

Aww, man!  From the topic I thought maybe someone was giving out free 9mm cartridges again.  Turns out this isn't the case, and even if it were I'm not even outside the system anyway, so I wouldn't qualifiy.

I guess I'll just have to get my ammo the old-fashioned way: hang out at the range with my open guitar case on the ground, hoping someone feels sorry for me.   

[Eli]

This is the second time Shane Cory has made me not want to be associated with the LP:
Time for a Purge?
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

In an official press release dated April 25, 2008, two "spokesmen" for the national Libertarian Party—which in this case means hired hands, un-elected by anybody—surrealistically called for "increased coordination and communication between federal and state law enforcement agencies" in the matter of child pornography. The document heavily quoted Robert Mueller, current head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Libertarians Call for Increased Communication to Combat Child Pornography"

http://www.lp.org/media/article_578.shtml

The two culprits in question are Executive Director Shane Cory, and somebody named Andrew Davis, grandiosely titled "National Media Coordinator". Both should be out looking for new jobs and other employers to misrepresent and disgrace


http://ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle466-20080504-02.html

[J’raxis 270145]

This is the second time Shane Cory has made me not want to be associated with the LP:
Time for a Purge?
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

In an official press release dated April 25, 2008, two "spokesmen" for the national Libertarian Party—which in this case means hired hands, un-elected by anybody—surrealistically called for "increased coordination and communication between federal and state law enforcement agencies" in the matter of child pornography. The document heavily quoted Robert Mueller, current head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Libertarians Call for Increased Communication to Combat Child Pornography"

http://www.lp.org/media/article_578.shtml

The two culprits in question are Executive Director Shane Cory, and somebody named Andrew Davis, grandiosely titled "National Media Coordinator". Both should be out looking for new jobs and other employers to misrepresent and disgrace


http://ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle466-20080504-02.html

This idiotic press release from the LP is what led to Ian's thread about them.

Myself, I've been taking a "wait and see" approach to see how this pans out. I've heard it's a result of infighting in the party between presidential candidates, most likely a slam against one of the candidates who's an age-of-consent reformist. If this becomes an official position of the LP, I could no longer support them either, but purging the idiots in the party who are pushing this nonsense sounds like a far better solution. I'm all for coalitioning with people and groups who agree with me on specific issues, regardless of one or two unrelated issues we don't agree on, but the LP is supposed to be the "party of principle" and maintain a consistent libertarian ethic.

[Eli]

I think Shane Cory is a Huge problem, despite party infighting.  The guy is just not a libertarian how believes that the Maximum role of the state is the protection of life liberty property.  This guy really wants the State to "do stuff."  Total LINO in my opinion.

[Jitgos]

When the LP came out with that Iraq plan I knew it was over. Don't bring the troops home, but place them strategically in the region when possible. They thought this was a more sensible, moderate plan that would attract more members. Then you have a Republican in Ron Paul come out with a plan to bring all the troops home immediately and he generates MASSIVE support. HAHAHA@LP!