the iron horse
Rock n' Roll Doggie
"By the Web site standards mentioned, opposition to gun control laws and excessive taxation makes one a terrorist. Insisting that we adhere to the Constitution makes one a terrorist. Lawfully demanding that the federal government protect, as opposed to usurp, the individual rights outlined in the Bill of Rights makes one a terrorist. The two groups of people who most typify the description I just provided are our Founding Fathers and Libertarians. It seems that Alabama Homeland Security would incarcerate Madison, Washington and Jefferson at Guantanamo Bay, if they had that option."
-LP Political Director Stephen Gordon in the Birmingham News in response to a couple of Homeland Security Internet pages which painted terrorists with a very broad brush
"The country has devolved so much into a two-party system that many folks believe that if you abandon one party, you must necessarily take up common cause with the other one. Yet if you have a choice between two restaurants - one that serves food laced with rat poison and one that serves it laced with arsenic, you might want to eat somewhere else, even if it's a long drive until the next rest stop and even if the new restaurant hasn't gotten great reviews."
- columnist Steven Greenhut explaining his decision to join the LP in the Orange County Register, May 6, 2007
"If I could get this down to zero, I'd be happy."
- Montana LP Chairman Mike Fellows about a proposed state income tax cut, Billings Gazette, April 11, 2007
"...the Libertarian Party, among all of the parties out there, is the only one that is true to my core philosophy of working to minimize government power and maximize individual liberty. None of the other parties, and especially the Republican Party any longer, is at all committed to that philosophy. And secondly, my great concern, manifested especially since 9/11, is the assaults on our fundamental civil liberties by this administration. [That's] personified, for example, in the disregard for the rule of law as exhibited by the warrantless NSA [National Security Agency] electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. More recently, [there were] documented abuses at the FBI in carrying out certain of the expanded powers granted in the Patriot Act, namely, national security letters. And in January of this year, the testimony by the attorney general that this administration does not believe that the fundamental right to a writ of habeas corpus is an important, fundamental, constitutional guarantee. So what we have is a party, the Republican Party, to which I was very proud to belong for many, many years, no longer being committed to a core conservative philosophy. The Libertarian Party is so committed, and I felt that at the time that it was necessary to make a change because of the seriousness of the assaults on our civil liberties."
- former Congressman Bob Barr, Salon News, April 4, 2007
"For instance, most election bills are written in ways that help protect the power of the incumbency, ballot access laws being the most obvious example. They write laws that make it harder for them to have any third-party opposition. And [this recent call for public campaign financing] is yet another example; this is basically another ballot-access barrier."
- LP Political Director Stephen Gordon, The New Standard, April 2, 2007
"The problem is that we are a minority party in a winner-take-all voting system," said Mr. Redpath, urging party activists to support "electoral reform" aimed at creating a system of proportional representation.
- LNC Chairman William Redpath, The Washington Times, March 19, 2007
"We have to put our best faces forward in winnable races," said Shane Cory, who became executive director of the Libertarian Party last year. He emphasized the need to "build from the bottom up" by winning office at the state and local level, and agreed with Mr. Viguerie's stress on issue-oriented activism. "We need to diversify and be able to address a broad range of issues," Mr. Cory said.
- LP Executive Director Shane Cory, The Washington Times, March 19, 2007
"If they want there to be a viable libertarian alternative in the political process of the United States, they should support the Libertarian Party and vote for its candidates."
- LNC Chairman William Redpath, Reason Magazine, December 2006
"Libertarians are neither conservative nor liberal. Libertarians believe in liberty on all the issues. They believe in personal freedoms/civil liberties and economic freedoms, whereas the Republicans want to control many social freedoms, and Democrats want to control many economic freedoms."
- Corey Stern, The Minnesota Daily, March 16, 2006
"The primary process of the two older parties is driving them farther and farther to the extreme . . . they are abandoning their more moderate and their younger and their more innovative candidates.Obviously if one of those people were to step forward and look to an existing organization like ours, the Libertarian Party. . . they could achieve an awful lot of traction, an awful lot of support from the voters who are being left out of this entire equation."
- excerpt from the March 10, 2006 appearance of LP National Chair, Michael Dixon on the Fox News Show, "Your World with Neal Cavuto"
Political scientists will tell you that the almost natural result of that is two dominant parties running for the center, trying to offend as few people as possible, and that's what gives us situations where everybody avoids the issues when they're running for office, situations where you have groupthink to a certain extent in legislatures, such as the resounding vote in allowing President Bush to take us to war in Iraq."
-LNC Chairman William Redpath, HotSoup.com, December 18, 2006
"Dislodged voters are unhappy with the two-party system, that’s who we’re targeting."
- Chief of Staff of the Libertarian Party, Shane Cory quoted in MSNBC.com article on December 5, 2005
"Voters who want the government out of their wallets, their bedrooms, their businesses and their hair, who just want to be left alone, have their own party. It's called the Libertarian Party."
- Chuck Muth, United Press International, January 26, 2005
http://www.lp.org/
-LP Political Director Stephen Gordon in the Birmingham News in response to a couple of Homeland Security Internet pages which painted terrorists with a very broad brush
"The country has devolved so much into a two-party system that many folks believe that if you abandon one party, you must necessarily take up common cause with the other one. Yet if you have a choice between two restaurants - one that serves food laced with rat poison and one that serves it laced with arsenic, you might want to eat somewhere else, even if it's a long drive until the next rest stop and even if the new restaurant hasn't gotten great reviews."
- columnist Steven Greenhut explaining his decision to join the LP in the Orange County Register, May 6, 2007
"If I could get this down to zero, I'd be happy."
- Montana LP Chairman Mike Fellows about a proposed state income tax cut, Billings Gazette, April 11, 2007
"...the Libertarian Party, among all of the parties out there, is the only one that is true to my core philosophy of working to minimize government power and maximize individual liberty. None of the other parties, and especially the Republican Party any longer, is at all committed to that philosophy. And secondly, my great concern, manifested especially since 9/11, is the assaults on our fundamental civil liberties by this administration. [That's] personified, for example, in the disregard for the rule of law as exhibited by the warrantless NSA [National Security Agency] electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. More recently, [there were] documented abuses at the FBI in carrying out certain of the expanded powers granted in the Patriot Act, namely, national security letters. And in January of this year, the testimony by the attorney general that this administration does not believe that the fundamental right to a writ of habeas corpus is an important, fundamental, constitutional guarantee. So what we have is a party, the Republican Party, to which I was very proud to belong for many, many years, no longer being committed to a core conservative philosophy. The Libertarian Party is so committed, and I felt that at the time that it was necessary to make a change because of the seriousness of the assaults on our civil liberties."
- former Congressman Bob Barr, Salon News, April 4, 2007
"For instance, most election bills are written in ways that help protect the power of the incumbency, ballot access laws being the most obvious example. They write laws that make it harder for them to have any third-party opposition. And [this recent call for public campaign financing] is yet another example; this is basically another ballot-access barrier."
- LP Political Director Stephen Gordon, The New Standard, April 2, 2007
"The problem is that we are a minority party in a winner-take-all voting system," said Mr. Redpath, urging party activists to support "electoral reform" aimed at creating a system of proportional representation.
- LNC Chairman William Redpath, The Washington Times, March 19, 2007
"We have to put our best faces forward in winnable races," said Shane Cory, who became executive director of the Libertarian Party last year. He emphasized the need to "build from the bottom up" by winning office at the state and local level, and agreed with Mr. Viguerie's stress on issue-oriented activism. "We need to diversify and be able to address a broad range of issues," Mr. Cory said.
- LP Executive Director Shane Cory, The Washington Times, March 19, 2007
"If they want there to be a viable libertarian alternative in the political process of the United States, they should support the Libertarian Party and vote for its candidates."
- LNC Chairman William Redpath, Reason Magazine, December 2006
"Libertarians are neither conservative nor liberal. Libertarians believe in liberty on all the issues. They believe in personal freedoms/civil liberties and economic freedoms, whereas the Republicans want to control many social freedoms, and Democrats want to control many economic freedoms."
- Corey Stern, The Minnesota Daily, March 16, 2006
"The primary process of the two older parties is driving them farther and farther to the extreme . . . they are abandoning their more moderate and their younger and their more innovative candidates.Obviously if one of those people were to step forward and look to an existing organization like ours, the Libertarian Party. . . they could achieve an awful lot of traction, an awful lot of support from the voters who are being left out of this entire equation."
- excerpt from the March 10, 2006 appearance of LP National Chair, Michael Dixon on the Fox News Show, "Your World with Neal Cavuto"
Political scientists will tell you that the almost natural result of that is two dominant parties running for the center, trying to offend as few people as possible, and that's what gives us situations where everybody avoids the issues when they're running for office, situations where you have groupthink to a certain extent in legislatures, such as the resounding vote in allowing President Bush to take us to war in Iraq."
-LNC Chairman William Redpath, HotSoup.com, December 18, 2006
"Dislodged voters are unhappy with the two-party system, that’s who we’re targeting."
- Chief of Staff of the Libertarian Party, Shane Cory quoted in MSNBC.com article on December 5, 2005
"Voters who want the government out of their wallets, their bedrooms, their businesses and their hair, who just want to be left alone, have their own party. It's called the Libertarian Party."
- Chuck Muth, United Press International, January 26, 2005
http://www.lp.org/