The Libertarians

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These principles - individual liberty, sound money, the Constitution, and the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers - have had no home in American politics for a very long time. With The Revolution: A Manifesto, I'm letting the establishment know we're not going away.

Finally, Americans can hear and judge these great American principles for themselves, instead of through an unfriendly media filter. And they can learn once and for all that they need not be satisfied with the phony choices the system offers them every four years. Another way really is possible.


Thanks for posting this, a timely reminder that libertarian conservatives haven't gone away. :up:
 
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children_librarian.JPG


Librarians :up:

I have a Library card.
 
Pauls stupidity over evolution and what I would consider softness on secularism are pretty unappealing; but that doesn't separate him from the rest of the GOP.
 
A_Wanderer said:
Pauls stupidity over evolution and what I would consider softness on secularism are pretty unappealing; but that doesn't separate him from the rest of the GOP.


What do you mean by his stupidity over evolution?


The Libertarian Party is far from the GOP and the DEMS.


BIG GORVERMENT CONTROL or freedom
 
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I mean that he rejects it as just a theory, a type of statement that has a very familiar ring to it and RP is a republican.
 
[q]Barr announces Libertarian presidential bid
Mon May 12, 2008 3:16pm EDT

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr said on Monday that he will run for president as a Libertarian, a development that could pull some votes from Republican candidate John McCain.

Barr said neither McCain nor Barack Obama, the Democratic frontrunner, would rein in a government that he said has grown too powerful after the September 11 attacks.

"A vote for the status quo ... is really and truly a wasted vote, because it is not going to do anything," Barr said.

As a Georgia congressman between 1995 and 2003, Barr was a stalwart conservative and one of the leaders of the impeachment of Democratic President Bill Clinton.

But Barr has broken with the Bush administration in recent years over its domestic surveillance program and what he called its abuse of due process rights.

Barr's run on the Libertarian ticket could complicate things ahead of the November election for McCain, who has struggled to unite some conservatives behind his candidacy.

Roughly one-quarter of those voting in last week's Republican nominating contests in Indiana and North Carolina cast their ballots for candidates other than McCain. And libertarian-leaning Republican candidate Ron Paul has not formally withdrawn from the race.

Barr said several members of his former party have asked him not to run.

But he said his supporters "would not likely fall into the category of people who would be enthused about voting for John McCain, if such exist."

Barr's exploratory committee said in April that a poll it commissioned found he would get the support of 7 percent of likely voters.

Barr did not mention New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, who trails Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination.

A matchup between Obama and McCain is unlikely to be close enough to be affected by any libertarian candidate, said Southern Methodist University professor Cal Jillson.

"I think we are in an election cycle here in 2008 that is leaning significantly toward the Democrats," Jillson said. "But if Obama stumbles and McCain gets close there is a possibility" that a third-party candidate could be a factor.

The Libertarian Party will pick its presidential candidate at its convention in Denver between May 22 and May 26. According to its Web site, it has gained ballot access in 28 states so far.[/q]
 
this has been percolating for sometime

could be a big plus for Obama

it gives many Conservatives a choice other than McCain/Amnesty or Obama /Jeremiah Wright
 
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because of where I live

most all of the people I associate with are Republican

and they have always not liked McCain

they also, are more anti-Obama than anti-Hillary

with that in mind I think some will find it easier to vote for Barr than McCain

of course in CA, it will not matter

but, in FL, OH and a couple more states,
this type of thinking could benefit Obama
 
Why do American "libertarians" just seem to be nothing more than a bunch of reactionary social conservatives? Because I certainly don't see them supporting "liberty" in the larger sense.

I have a bit of a libertarian streak in me, at times, but it resembles absolutely nothing of the American definition of "libertarianism." They're just downright creepy--like "Scientologist creepy."
 
Irvine511 said:
who will the sadists vote for?

Without sadism, one reverts to the next best thing: self-centeredness.

Enter the U.S. Libertarian Party.
 
melon said:
Why do American "libertarians" just seem to be nothing more than a bunch of reactionary social conservatives? Because I certainly don't see them supporting "liberty" in the larger sense.

I have a bit of a libertarian streak in me, at times, but it resembles absolutely nothing of the American definition of "libertarianism." They're just downright creepy--like "Scientologist creepy."
What flavour of libertarian are you talking about?
 
A_Wanderer said:
What flavour of libertarian are you talking about?

American libertarians are probably what one refers to as "paleolibertarians." However, as I see it, "libertarianism" that de-emphasizes personal liberty and positive rights as irrelevant, and happy to see the state keep an iron fist on those issues (i.e., Ron Paul), is really just plain-old social conservatism. The term, "paleolibertarian" is, frankly, superfluous and misleading. True libertarians, who want less state interference in both economic and social matters, should be appalled by this faction, who have done little more than paint the entire movement as just plain nutty.
 
[q]Barr on gay marriage: California decision is how it’s supposed to work

Friday, May 16, 2008, 08:25 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr says that when it comes to gay marriage, what happens in California is California’s own business. He’s a states’ rights man.

Here’s the statement Barr’s issued, which — one week before the Libertarian national convention in Denver — is likely to generate some talk:
barrgay.jpg

“Regardless of whether one supports or opposes same sex marriage, the decision to recognize such unions or not ought to be a power each state exercises on its own, rather than imposition of a one-size-fits-all mandate by the federal government (as would be required by a Federal Marriage Amendment which has been previously proposed and considered by the Congress).

The decision today by the Supreme Court of California properly reflects this fundamental principle of federalism on which our nation was founded.

“Indeed, the primary reason for which I authored the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 was to ensure that each state remained free to determine for its citizens the basis on which marriage would be recognized within its borders, and not be forced to adopt a definition of marriage contrary to its views by another state.

The decision in California is an illustration of how this principle of states’ powers should work.”[/q]
 
the iron horse said:



you've changed your position on gay marriage, right? after all, as a libertarian, i should be free to enter into any contract i so choose with whatever partner i so choose, correct? this is what your candidate for president is saying, and it doesn't matter a fig what your religious beliefs are, because you know very well, as a libertarian, that they don't belong in the public arena, right?

or is this just fashion, a way to be different?
 
melon said:


Without sadism, one reverts to the next best thing: self-centeredness.

Enter the U.S. Libertarian Party.

Call me old-fashioned.

I deem self-centredness infinitely more moral than the war-mongering imperialism/statism of the War Party (95% of the Rethugs, and a good 70-80% of the Dimocrats. )
 
Irvine511 said:




you've changed your position on gay marriage, right? after all, as a libertarian, i should be free to enter into any contract i so choose with whatever partner i so choose, correct? this is what your candidate for president is saying, and it doesn't matter a fig what your religious beliefs are, because you know very well, as a libertarian, that they don't belong in the public arena, right?

or is this just fashion, a way to be different?


I am not answering for Iron Horse.

But it is entirely possible to morally disapprove of homosexuality on a PERSONAL level and yet disagree with legislation banning contracts for marriage between consenting adults.
 
financeguy said:

But it is entirely possible to morally disapprove of homosexuality on a PERSONAL level and yet disagree with legislation banning contracts for marriage between consenting adults.

Sure it's possible, we just never see it.
 
financeguy said:



I am not answering for Iron Horse.

But it is entirely possible to morally disapprove of homosexuality on a PERSONAL level and yet disagree with legislation banning contracts for marriage between consenting adults.



yes, absolutely.

i could fight on the absurdity of "morally disapprov[ing]" of something as natural as being left-handed, but the point remains -- the libertarian position is to increase freedom, not to kick those who are different and make sure that they remain contemptible lest they start to get all comfortable and uppity.
 
financeguy said:



I am not answering for Iron Horse.

But it is entirely possible to morally disapprove of homosexuality on a PERSONAL level and yet disagree with legislation banning contracts for marriage between consenting adults.



Thank you financeguy.
You expressed it well :)
 
the iron horse said:




Thank you financeguy.
You expressed it well :)



glad to hear we can count you as yet another homophobe for gay marriage! :up:

you know what i disagree with on a PERSONAL level? red hair.

:tsk:
 
Consider the poor Washington libertarian. Everywhere else in America his type is an exotic species, a coffee-shop heretic who quotes from "Atlas Shrugged" and steers every conversation toward Ron Paul or gold. Take him or leave him, he doesn't care. He is his own master.

Not so the Beltway variety. Here, in the very home of the taxing, regulating leviathan, the libertarian is such a commonplace and unremarkable bird that no one gives him a second glance. Here he is a factotum of the establishment, a tiny voice in a vast choir assembled by business and its tax-exempt front groups to sing the virtues of the entrepreneur.

And therein lies his dilemma. Almost by definition, our young libertarian's job is to celebrate the profit motive from the offices of a not-for-profit organization. He is subsidized, in other words, to hymn the unsubsidized way of life. Rugged individualism may be his creed, but a rugged individual he ain't.

This is more than just an abstract problem, as I discovered last week at a panel discussion hosted by America's Future Foundation, one of the lesser libertarian nonprofits in the city. The questions that night were whether nonprofit work constituted a "real job" and if moving to the private sector was "selling out" – ideas well known to any liberal do-gooder.

The audience of young professionals learned about the need to find a job that you loved. It heard the inevitable complaint that "there are plenty of people who are choosing for-profit over nonprofit" when their heart tells them to do the opposite. A panelist asked the audience to imagine a foundation worker saying to his boss, "I love what I do, but in the end I've got a wife and three kids, and we live in McLean, and the mortgage is through the roof, and my commute sucks, or whatever, I need a little bit more cash," only to have his employer turn him down.

These plaints sounded so familiar that I felt like suggesting that everyone there hop out and grab a copy of Daniel Brook's fine but distinctly unlibertarian 2007 book "The Trap." By skewing society's rewards so lopsidedly to the top in the country's richest cities, Mr. Brook writes, the tax-reducing, market-minded economic policies of the last few decades have priced all sorts of high-minded occupations to the bottom of the middle class: teaching, the arts, and, of course, nonprofit work.

Many of the people Mr. Brook talks to in such cities haven't given up on these pursuits because they're "sellouts"; they've given up because they want proper health care or decent housing or good schools for their kids.

In traditional sellout theory there is always some grand cause or principle that is being exchanged for immediate gain – artistic independence, for example, or the fate of the panda, trembling piteously before the onrushing bulldozers of modernity.

But what is it that libertarians are selling when they accept the fat paychecks of corporate America? The noble principle of self interest? The utopia of the market itself? Will the workings of supply and demand really seize up if some young Ayn Randette chooses to forsake, say, the Cato Institute and instead help ExxonMobil pile up the pelf?

Fortunately, there were a few plainspoken men of the market present at the gathering to set things straight. Capitalists were the world's real heroes, they reminded us, delivering value to the public and seeing that value quantified precisely by the numbers on the balance sheet. That was reality. the idea that "there's something special about nonprofits," scoffed one forthright fellow – "well, that's crap. Nonprofits are an artifice of the law, and what's special about them is not that they do different things or that they are organized in a special way, it's that they don't pay taxes."

Personally, I would take this hard line one step further: Selling out is not a threat to the market order; selling out is how the market gets its way. Just look at the city in which all these remarks were made. Private-sector Washington is one of the wealthiest places in America. Public-service Washington lags considerably behind. The chance of ditching the one for the other is what accounts for everything from the power of K Street to the infamous "revolving door," by which a public servant takes a cushy corporate job after engineering some extravagant government favor for the corporation in question – or its clients.

The libertarian nonprofits that line the city's streets often serve merely to rationalize this operation after the fact, giving a pious shine to the policies that are made in this unholy manner.

To their credit, the nonprofit libertarians I watched the other night did not ask for sympathy. Their own doctrine won't permit it. Having spent years urging lawmakers to wreck the social order that once made occupations like theirs tenable, they will cling stubbornly to their free-market idol all the way down.
Fighting Words - WSJ.com
 
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