Leftists, Vote Badnarik

Redondo:

Bush has violated the First, Fourh, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments
while in power as President. He has repeatedly voiced support of violations of the Second Amendment.

Kerry has violated the First, Fourh, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments while in power as Senator. He has repeatedly voiced support of violations of the Second Amendment.

Nader has promised to violate the First, Fourh, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments if he ever comes to power as President. He has repeatedly voiced support of violations of the Second Amendment.

Given the fact that protecting the BoR is the first duty of every American public official, neither Bush, Kerry, nor Nader are eligible for the job.

Badnarik remains the only candidate.
 
Dave85 said:
The Libertarians are strict constitutionalists. Since when did adhering to the Constitution become "extreme?!?!"
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It was that way by at least 1860...might have been before that even. Only gotten worse since then.
 
What always amazes me about the LP is that the party that advocates free market capitalism apparently forgets those principles when it comes election time.

You can demand more from politicians as you have more votes to offer in exchange. Demanding more concessions while offering fewer votes is not a successful route to political power.

To give an example, there were roughly 50 million voters for each of the major parties in 2000. The Libertarians represented 384,431 votes in 2000. Neither party is going to make the changes the LP advocates because they would lose a lot more votes than the 384,431 they would gain.

When this happens in politics, you have two choices - increase your voter base until you can gain your concessions without compromise or comrpomise on your policies to take some of what you can get. The two major political parties usually do both at the same time, they compromise to get what they think is achievable and work to expand their voting base so that they can gain further concessions later.

The minor political parties don't compromise and they stay minor because their political power base is forever limited to the maximum number of people that are ideologically pure and that number isn't big enough to win elections in the U.S.

Hell, it isn't big enough to win elections in most states or even big enough to scare the major parties in most instances. The LP would have to double the highest percentage of the vote they have ever received (1.1% in 1980) and receive eight times the votes they received in 2000 before they could even play the role of spoiler a la the Greens.

The easiest way to double the influence of the LP is not to double its votes; but to shrink the pool of votes it has to compete with by concetrating on a single major party and changing it from within while continuing to educate voters.
 
Bartholomew, I'm a Democrat, not a republican.

Yet here I am, offering my quill and keyboard (for unfortunately I may not offer my vote) to the service of the Libertarians. Their policy worked on me. Think it won't work for other Democrats? Or Republicans? How many people out there simply never heard about the Libertarians? How many WOULD vote for them if they did hear about them?

Let's go find out.
 
Think it won't work for other Democrats? Or Republicans? How many people out there simply never heard about the Libertarians? How many WOULD vote for them if they did hear about them? Let's go find out.
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MicroBalrog, I am happy you support their policies; but the Libertarian Party has existed for over 30 years now. During that time, this is their record in Presidential elections:

The Libertarian's first Presidential election is in 1972. They can only get on the ballot in two states and as a result receive only 3,672 votes out of 77 million. However it still represents the highpoint of their progress as a political party as they receive the first and only electoral vote they will ever get from a Nixon Delegate named Roger MacBride.

1976: 0.21% of 81 million votes
1980: 1.1% of 86 million votes
1984: 0.3% of 92 million votes
1988: 0.5% of 91 million votes
1992: 0.28% of 104 million votes
1996: 0.5% of 96 million votes
2000: 0.36% of 111 million votes

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/U.S.-presidential-election,-1980

From my thinking that leaves us with two options:

1) We already know how many people will vote for and support Libertarian Party Presidential candidates and it isn't encouraging

2) There are still vast numbers of untapped Libertarian votes out there to be had but the current and past party leadership has been unable to find them in 30+ years.

I don't find other one of those options to be encouraging. I consider myself a libertarian; but at best the LP will manage 1% of the vote (and that would be a minor miracle).

The thing that really scares me is that the Libertarian party is successful in swinging the vote to one party or the other this election. If you look at the 2000 election numbers, the Green party got about eight times the votes the Libertarians did. The likely outcome of an election that the LP swings is not a more libertarian outlook by the major parties but a more socialist one as they look and see more/easier votes to pick up from the Green party.
 
You're a democrat? I thought you were an Israeli citizen.

Guns aside how can you be a democrat and support the libertarian party? Take a look at their economic platform, their position on public education, their position on the environment. I think you've been seduced by their stance on guns. I would suggest you keep your support with the democrats and be a CIVIL libertarian - that's a whole other thing. Liberal groups like the ACLU have accomplished a lot more than the libertarian party in protecting the bill of rights (gun rights aside of course but that's why we have NRA/GOA/SAF/JPFO etc ).
 
Halcon, I would note that the usual Democrat stance of the environment had led to the creation of the EPA - an out-of-control agency if you ever saw one.

Also, I'm only going to stay Israeli till the end of my IDF service. :)


However, I am a Democrat. I support the Dems on medicine, education, etc.

But!

The primary purpose of government is to defend people's rights. Not to give them privileges like welfare and free education (although I'd argue these things are conducive to the defense of the Republic in the long run, but let's not start an argument.)

If, instead of doing that, the government is actively violating those rights, then the first priority of any responsible human being is to make the violation stop. ASAP . If I lived in a place where drugs, guns, and Yarts were all freely available to the citizen, and the Fifth, Fourth and Ninth were safe, I'd be arguing with the Libertarians whether we should have free education. But arguing about the merits of Medicare when, in the words of John Ross, tax agents with hand grenades and machineguns are attacking people over a potential $200 violation, is like fiddling when Rome burns.
 
Neal Boortz (Libertarian champion extraordinaire) put it best in his June 18th column:
It is all-too common for people, when they discover that I’m a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party , to respond with “Oh, you’re the people who want to legalize drugs.” ...

But what if I respond to that initial query with something like; “Well, Libertarians believe that if you make $1000 a week your paycheck every other Friday should be for $2000.” OK … now you have their attention. That idea has universal appeal, and you have just been granted an extra few minutes to make the sale. Or you could respond; “Libertarians believe that the government shouldn’t be allowed to condemn your home, seize it, and turn it over to a developer for a fancy new condo project.” Once again, you have their attention. People actually still believe that a man’s home is his castle, and you now have an audience that will listen to your libertarian pitch for at least a few more minutes. ...

C-Span is carrying the entire thing on live national television for anyone interested in watching. After the nominating speeches are concluded, and after the delegations present their votes in writing, there’s a lull in the action while votes are tabulated. This is a prime opportunity for the Libertarian Party to sell itself to the C-Span viewers. So, what do we get? Do we see a well-produced feature on eminent domain abuse? Nope. How about a feature on the Fair Tax plan (http://www.fairtax.org/), a plan to eliminate all federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes and replace them with a simple national retail sales tax? Nope again. Predictably, some rocket scientist at the Libertarian Party decides to fill this void with a feature on … what else! … medical marijuana! Here comes that “legalize drugs” thing again. This was a complete validation for those out there who think that, first and foremost, the Libertarian Party is about drug legalization.
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http://www.townhall.com/columnists/nealboortz/nb20040618.shtml

In most respects I agree with the Libertarian philosophy, but they continually shoot themselves in the foot.
 
I can't in conscience or in wisdom vote for either Bush or Kerry.
Since Badnarik got the Libertarian Party nomination over Aaron Russo (too bad; I was at his Chicago Kinetic Playground in 1969!), I may just have to vote for him.
 
Good article. I seriously doubt it would convince any of the liberals in my locale, but good nonetheless.


I posted a question on THR, and have yet to get a good answer. It basically said "Where do you draw the 'do what is right instead of compromising' line between 'work within the party' and 'shoot the bastards'?"

I took a good hard look at the GOP and determined that I want no part of their national platform. My local GOP are good guys, but I actually took the time to read the GOP national platform, and its a bunch of gibberish. It doesn't actually say that they are for this or that. The LP's does.

I may not agree with the LP's position on immigration and the war in Iraq (those are sticking points with many libs), but I would rather vote for someone who represents 90% of my views than one who represents 30 or 20.

Odd how my Senate and House nominees represent about 80% of my values, yet Bush is all that the GOP can muster nationally. Kinda says something about the national GOP, in my opinion.

Draft Larry Craig! ;)
 
It basically said "Where do you draw the 'do what is right instead of compromising' line between 'work within the party' and 'shoot the bastards'?"
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"Here and now" sounds good.

"The perfect is the enemy of the good", you say? I say that if nobody ever insisted on the perfect, there'd never be any good. - Neil Smith.
 
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