Are activists able to debate restoring LP in NH here? Why not?

[PattyLee loves dogs]

  I don't understand why many folks here want to tear down the Libertarian Party. The LP has embodied very pure principles. At least if candidates are not elected then at least your neighbors hopefully are introduced to another viewpoint that in its essence is respected by thinkers; and you have taken a good stand.
The work performed in the  defense of individual rights as carried by the LP, and that I would posit, is what brought so many of us together in our social network. Liberty as a social policy is almost impossible to achieve and any progress is so fragile. I think this blog membership here needs to a lot more careful. What is the great result when you throw away the LP?
I came to the FS and have been mystified that the LP is abandoned by the prevailing group of so many on this board. Now I see in our numbers it is possible to resurrect the LP in it's framework of purity, but instead less thought out alternatives are propped up and doomed to fail. 

Are we competing to be more absurd and nihilistic with joking about the Kindergarten Party? This appears proposed as a serious idea but no mention of who or what will be the Kindegarten Teacher, or wait, what about the Pirates party, that is really great. Why turn to TV cult personalities such as Jessie Ventura? So easy but ineffective and probably destructive.

If ideas like this cannot be debated here this blog is no better than bad religion.

[George Donnelly]

I haven't moved yet so take my opinion for what it is/not worth but I prefer to direct my energy into self-improvement, education and black/grey market trading (ie agorism). I just find it to be more productive and satisfying than politics.

[Jim Johnson]

Purity and politics are opposites and can not exist together.

Wanting to have power over people so that they can be free is also a contradiction.

The Libertarian Party is self defeating, it may gain power but then it will wield power over people.  It has no hope of obtaining it's goals.

[KBCraig]

PattyLee, this board isn't representative of FSP members or movers. There are plenty of folks, including FSP movers, who are trying to restore the LPNH.

On the other hand, it's easy to understand the disillusionment. If NH, the state celebrated as closest to libertarian, can make hard-core FSP early movers throw up their hands and exclaim "Why bother?!?", I don't know that the LP has much future anywhere.

[thinkliberty]

2 words describe why the LP is worthless: Bob Barr

[Sovereign Curtis]

2 words describe why the LP is worthless: Bob Barr

I got two better: Mike Gravel

[K. Darien Freeheart]

OK, you guys. Are you against the principles of the LP

If the LP had, and kept, principle, I wouldn't be against them. They lost principle in the drive to be elected. Nobody who considered themselves an original Libertarian would ACCEPT being elected. Anybody who claims to be since then FAILS.

you lost focus on what you should be active for?

I'm younger than you.

The Libertarian, for all of my life, has lacked principle. You can debate Lloyd, you chat with other people about "what has been lost" but that arguement fails on me.

The Libertarian Party has NEVER stood for principle in my lifetime. And you know what, I'm just fine with that.

In Elementry School, I was tought to touch type. I wasn't taught cursive. Comparing to people a few years older than me, and a few years younger, I realize I'm on the divide..

The Internet has ALWAYS, as far as I know, been a more effective engine for honesty than the LP.

The internet has ALWAYS, been a more principled platform for non-interference with other people's lives.

The FSP has ALWAYS created more effective means to show why individual liberties are more important than X (X = X = Constitutions. X= Freedom. X = Anything the LP might toss out to confuse opponents to getting elected)

The LP was a great idea 40 years ago. Today, we have the internet. Today, we have a network of activists here in NH who are working towards Liberty without central direction.

We don't NEED the LP, and given their state, we shouldn't WANT them.

We, us activists, have evolved beyond the need for the LP.

Have you?

[Russell Kanning]

I witnessed the funeral for the LP.
I saw a man weep bitterly for its passing.
I didn't know the deceased very well at all.

[Tom Sawyer]

Year after year people invested time, money and (most costly) enthusiasm... 30 years worth, not much was acheived...

Those resources spent to make a feature film... it would still have value.

What are the reasons folks will continue to fund the organization each election cycle?
Another question to consider is "Who wins even when a candidate loses?"
The people seeking power get to be in charge, even if it is only a small group.

Participation in the political contests has been a huge waste of resources... The "salesmen" keep dusting off and shining up the same crap and trying to sell it ever four years.

I got tired of being treated like a rube.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I'm not sure why my name was invoked here.  I've never been a member of the National LP.  I was excited about its formation because I thought that small 'l' libertarian philosophy would 'trickle down'  into the mainstream through political debates and media coverage. I worked on the formation of the CT LP for the same reason.
I was mistaken.  Say what you want about the media being left or right. The one thing the media does and has done consistently, for more than 35 years, is ignore the Libertarian Parties.
I (actually used to say that an LP presidential candidate would have to get arrested to get any media coverage. That idea went south when Badnarik got arrested.

[Tom Sawyer]

I'm not sure why my name was invoked here.

Careful research has determined it is all your fault! 

[Free libertarian]

 The eleventh commandment?  Thou shalt not invoke the name of Lloyd in vain.   

[Lloyd Danforth]

He didn't invoke it in vain. He invoked it in Grafton. Lincoln didn't die in vain either.

[Olozzalap]

I can say, as perhaps the youngest here at age 17, that the LP is a good idea, at least in principle, but I fear that any significant gains made by them will just dilute those principles and make them more "mainstream" and "watered down", make it more into a small government Republican party. Though I am quite disillusioned by politics at this point I will probably vote for the LP next election.
But I believe the nonpolitical and civil disobedience aspect of the NH liberty movement is a lot more productive and effective at achieving its goals, it is also much less susceptible to corruption and perversion of principle.

[Ogre]

Personally, having been very involved in politics when I thought politics could fix things, I think the LP really just isn't going to make it. Too many people that are not involved honestly believe that the LP exists for the "long-haired hippies" and to legalize drugs for the majority to ever vote LP (again, from what I've seen). Its existed for decades now and isn't making any significant progress. So if you're the type to believe in working within the system, I don't think the LP is going to be the solution, there's just too many negative connotations with too many people.

So if you're convinced on working within the system, well, I don't know the vehicle you can use.