libetarian party

how do people here view the libetarian party?

personlly, i wish we had similar party in the UK - i'm very attracted to the concept of pesonal responsibility and haveing the government keep its nose out.

i think they go a little far though, while i'm against a benefits system i also understand why current society needs something like it - although nowhere near the level we have now.

its going to be interesting to see their experiment in NH!

Basically they are a wasted vote. The Green Party is much the same. Although it would be great if a third party was strong enough to matter and force real change. Til then I will vote where it counts.

Im really surprised that the Libertarian party isn't more popular or bigger than it is. I think a lot of people of this generation (meaning 20-35 year olds) are very libertarian in their views. I imagine quite a lot of people on the site are.

Maybe it's only a matter of time before they become a real challenger to the Dems and Reps. But third parties got it rough in this country....

The Liberatarian party is the only sane political choice.

Sad but true. I'm registered Libertarian, but I never vote for them because they always lose.

and where does it count? the republicans are currently being directed by a neo-con core that pays lip service to the GOP goldwater envisaged, while the democrats look a total mess unable to come up with a candidate who doesnt look like a cluster-fuck in waiting

And with all the people never voting for who they really want the numbers never increase and as such the idea of supporting anyone not in one of the two parties that have fucked us and got us on each others asses everytime the other side is in power becomes less favorable for those who share the same ideas.

This pisses me off about humans. We want this but if we can't get it today we'll settle for something else when it comes to politics, yet we order things that take fucking weeks and months to get to us all the time and if it's fucked we ship it back and continue to wait for the replacement. Voting for what you want is only going to help increase awareness and lead you to wider acknowledgement and acceptance which leads to party popularity and chances of showing the nimrods in power that if we don't like them we do have viable options. Why can't we show the same patience in bettering our fucking world by voting who we really want to vote for that we have in ordering some fucking crap of an infomercial?

Is it really that humans are such fucked creatures that all they care about is being on the winning team. I'm a fucking cowboys fan for pity's sake. I was a fan when they kicked ass, and a fan when they sucked ass. Guess what? I'm no longer feeling the dismay I was feeling the past few years because I exercised a little faith in my belief that one day they won't suck. I do the same when it comes to politics but when I see people claiming to believe in one thing and not supporting it I start to lose faith, but not because we always end up with the same kind of assholes, it's because nobody seems to give more than lipservice about change.

[Edited on Nov 14, 2003 by Troll]

Well in theory I agree Troll. But I dont vote for whoever I think will win, I vote ideologically and rationally. When the Libertarian party only pulls in 2% of the vote and the elections are close between the Republicrats, I'd be kind of dumb not to vote for the GOP. I agree with Libertarians on about 80% of their issues, Republicans about 50%. But I hardly agree with ANYTHING the Democrats/Greens stand for. Maybe 5% of the Democrats' positions I agree with, and the Greens seem like lunatics/communists to me. Nothing with them, except maybe dope legalization.

But I'm way out there on the right.



[Edited on Nov 14, 2003 by stockula]

Like I said, you ain't gonna win them all. I'm betting you didn't vote for Clinton and you still had to sit through 8 years of him after voting republican against him. Meanwhile you could have increased the numbers and the percentage for the group you claim to support

No vote is a wasted vote. I'm probably going to vote libertarian next election. I know the candidate will have no chance in hell of winning, but I feel like the more votes the libertarians get, the more inclined the republicans will be to consider their stances on some issues. That’s just my opinion though.

Well, the way the President is elected, I did a lot more for Bush and Dole supporting them in my state to make sure they got Alaska's electoral votes. Had I voted Libertarian, guess what? Libs would still be a fringe minority.

Organizing and moving to a state where Libertarians WOULDN'T be a minority fringe, which is the point of the Free State Project, is the only conceivable way to make voting Libertarian to make sense.

Hell they might actually work on some compromises. I mean it takes years to get to the kind of partisan bullshit we get from the democrats and republicans.

And to go back to my earlier rant, why is it that all these people keep saying the other party has no chance yet blame a third party for ruining it for them. Republicans blamed a 3rd party when the first Bush lost and Dems, in the words of Nader, "keep whining" that a 3rd party ruined it for them. Imagine if everyone had voted for who the hell they wanted. The accused spoiler may have actually fucking won. Plenty thought Nader couldn't win and voted for Gore and plenty did the same with Perot and Bush, though Perot really fucked himself. If nothing else they could have made a better show had they voted for who they wanted and been past the need to say there's no chance in the next election. But instead they just want to have that feeling of being fucked so they can bitch for 4-8 years

i think any system that is dependant on the mass of people doing what's right, or ethical is doomed to fail. i agree with the concept behind libertarianism, but people lack the personal responsibility necessary to make it work. i feel the same about communism and anarcho-punk or communal living...any of that.
the reason this country has done as well as it has, is because capitalism is fueled by greed, and that comes naturally to most.

If voting actually changed things then it would be illegal.

As made so by democrats and republicans because people are afraid to vote for any other party enough times to give them any weight. I was a republican but once the wing took control I gave up on them. And if you look at some of the extemist posts here, you'd see why I'd rather not be associated with them. I liked some concepts of the democrats but I think partisan politics have pretty much made them all wingers in so much as their main concern is anything anti-republican no matter what the cause.

"What? AND THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY?"

See? Buy into that and freaking aliens end up enslaving the world, again.

I'm a registered Libertarian, and I vote Libertarian, but not too many others do. Look at how many people in this post have confessed to being Libertarians, but voting Democrat or Republican "so that their vote counts".
Every vote counts. If the Libertarian party pulled in just 10% of the vote in a presidential election, the major parties would take note. We might see real change for once. Whenever people ask me how I can vote for a party that I know wont win, I ask them how they can sell out by voting for something that they don't believe in. I respect Democrats and Republicans who really believe in their party's ideology. I think they're deluded, but I respect them. I don't understand who people who aren't willing to take a stand at the ballot box, for Christ's sake, where no one will ever know and no one's watching you, can respect themselves.
Representative democracy being what it is, as long as people aren't willing to take a stand for what they believe in, we will continue to have the representatives that we have today, and the status quo will never change.

respekt

Of extant, well-developed political theories, libertarianism is definitely as good as it gets, and the more we can move toward its goals, the better off the world, or at least the West (the rest is probably not yet capable of libertarian goals), will be. All of us in our 20's and 30's, who are about to get fucked in the ass very hard over the next two decades, by elder statists of both the left and right, should flock to it.

Libertarian theory does suffer from a surfeit of rationalism over empiricism. This has led to something of a conflict between paleolibertarianism (flagship: lewrockwell.com) and neolibertarianism (flagship: Reason magazine). Personally, I lean hard toward paleolibertarianism, at least until I can found Observation magazine (don't nobody hold their breath waiting).

Still, almost all us libertarians agreed all along that the invasion of Iraq would be, and was, a very bad idea. With that, practically all the leftists on SG can agree also, though for very different reasons. Leftists mistakenly act as if economics was a zero-sum game, so that Western wealth is somehow connected to Muslim and African poverty, and the only way we can make amends is to adopt a polity almost as stupid as prevailing Muslim and African ones. Libertarians know that human potential and creativity, and thus economic activity, is for practical purposes infinite, but paleolibertarians (Washington and Jefferson were among them) know that you can't export the crop of liberty, only the seeds, and then only when the ground is fertile. Bush, the neocon puppet, is trying to export a rotting crop to barren ground. Failure is inevitable.

For a view of libertarianism and practical politics, visit Republican Congressman and former Libertarian Party president Ron Paul, perhaps the only politician of integrity in all of Washington. His recent speech on Iraq was monumental; we'll see if any higher-ups get the message.

Libertarianism as a serious political philosophy is almost unique to America, something Americans should be much more proud of than their army, anthem or even their flag, though they're not. Still, in Britain, where our disarmed citizenry is penalized much more harshly for self-defence than our criminals are for armed robbery, and the rate of gun murder is actually rising despite the absence of legal guns, there remains a libertarian presence of sorts.

I think it would be nice to have proportional representation or instant run-off voting. That would be some damn fine democracy.

some excellent points here, but it is a bit dismaying to see libetarians voting for other parties - i wonder just how many people do that, and what the election results would look like if they followed their convictions rather than compromise?

imo it'd send a powerful message out to the main parties that people are tired of the BS they have to put up with.

it seems to me the democratic process is failing, especially in light of the powerful and influential media voice, and people are responding by not voting.

while the parties call this voter apathy, perhaps it not - perhaps it the population sending a message that they're being failed on almost every level.

as the signature of a poster on another board says "its too late to work within the system, and too early to shoot the bastards"

If people would stop bitching and moaning about things like the statistically minor errors produced by computerized voting machines, perhaps they could focus on the discrimination against third parties written into the law. Third parties spend most of their money and effort just trying to get on the ballot.

The point ozymandias, et al, make is valid. However, there will never be any force strong enough to matter as long as the Republocrats keep the competition hidden from the voters.

BTW, for the few of you who live in states where you can actually see "Libertarian," "Green," "Natural Law," etc., after your candidates names, please be aware that most of us live in states where this is either not allowed or made prohibitively difficult.

and what statistially minor errors would these be?

the ones in boone county that produced 144,000 votes from 5,352 ballots?
the ones where gore was given minus 16022 votes?
the ones where a precinct with 600 voters managed to take 16,000 votes of gore and add 10,000 to another candidate?

hardly insignificant, especially in light of the electoral college system employed by the US where a single state can swing it.