The Libertarian Party

[Brad GLuckman 518]

BLS and Titans mentioned it today. The Libertarian party gets talked about alot around here. I remember a while back I went to their website to check out their stance on the issues. For the most part, I am all about what they believe in. (especially on taxes, education, welfare, social security, healthcare)

 

I thought they had some pretty crazy views on a couple topics if I remember correctly...

 

But all I can see that I disagree with is:

 

1) No waiting period for handguns

2) Legalizing drugs - I'm all for legalizing marijuana...but I haven't decided if all drugs should be legal. I think legal crystal meth just can't be a good t hing

 

What do you guys think of the Libertarian Party...? What issues do you agree/disagree with?

[jerryskids 5,207]

I in general agree with the views as well. I've said here before, if they would ease up on a few of their "out there" positions, they could make a serious run. You mentioned a few:

 

- Handguns: just drop it. There is societal value for a waiting period, and maintaining this makes them look like wackos.

- Legalize drugs: put on the shelf. I tend to agree with it, but if you push it before you get into power, you look like a wacko.

- Isolationism: compromise. I don't think the country is ready to just put our head in the sand regarding world events.

 

Do this and the country is their oyster. Of course, BLS will say that you can't compromise on your values, so the party will continue to wallow in obscurity.

[BLS 313]

I in general agree with the views as well. I've said here before, if they would ease up on a few of their "out there" positions, they could make a serious run. You mentioned a few:

 

- Handguns: just drop it. There is societal value for a waiting period, and maintaining this makes them look like wackos.

- Legalize drugs: put on the shelf. I tend to agree with it, but if you push it before you get into power, you look like a wacko.

- Isolationism: compromise. I don't think the country is ready to just put our head in the sand regarding world events.

 

Do this and the country is their oyster. Of course, BLS will say that you can't compromise on your values, so the party will continue to wallow in obscurity.

 

All while you espouse issues that the Libertarian Party doesn't believe in, such as isolationism (which it DOESN'T).

But don't let terminology get in the way of a good discussion JK.

 

Sometimes JK.....

 

Maybe it's the American people who need to wake up and not the Libertarian Party?

 

It is, in fact, what this country was FOUNDED on. It couldn't have been THAT bad could it?!?!

 

I see where you're going with this JK, and I understand your argument. But that's POLITICS and Libertarians don't necessarily like playing politics.

[Isotopes 1]

I agree with most of their views and woudl vote for them if they had a viable candidate. I think their biggest weakness is that they have not had a charismatic leader to take them to the next level.

[Brad GLuckman 518]

I don't believe in Isolationism, but I like their idea of doing away with foreign aid. I have to research it more, but they make a good case that it doesn't help anything and is pretty much equal to the welfare system. It'd be tough to pass that because I think foreign aid is more of a feel good thing now than a policy that actually accomplishes anything.

 

I can't see a reason why a waiting period on handguns would be bad. I disagree with them 100% on that.

 

And like JK said...even though I may be softening on my stance on legalizing drugs...it will continue to keep the party irrelevant.

 

Alot of Repubs are sick of the Republican party, and the libertarian party seems to be a better alternative.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

The libertarian party needs two things... a charismatic leader, and sh!tloads of $$$.

 

The latter will ruin the party, as it did the two we have now.

[Strike 3,979]

The libertarian party needs two things... a charismatic leader, and sh!tloads of $$$.

 

The latter will ruin the party, as it did the two we have now.

 

And hot wimmin. Hot Wimmin with big Cans would get my vote!!! Schwing

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

And hot wimmin. Hot Wimmin with big Cans would get my vote!!! Schwing

 

Huh. I've heard of swing voters, but never schwing voters.

[paradoxical 1]

Do people not know what isolationism means?

[Me_2006 14]

I tend to identify with the majority of what they believe, and would like to consider myself much more Libertarian than Democrat or Republican, but I think the main problem is that it's always easier to criticize when you're on the outside looking in. Sort of like the Democratic platform the past 8 years has been bitching about the Republicans while offering no real solutions, the Libertarian party has the benefit of hindsight and standing on ideals instead of realities.

[wiffleball 4,645]

It'd be easier to get behind them if they didn't consistently put up whack-jobs for candidates.

[Brad GLuckman 518]

Do people not know what isolationism means?

 

When I say I don't believe in isolationism, I mean I don't agree with a 100% non-interventionist military policy. For example...and I'm not sure...what is the Libertarian view on Afghanistan? I have no idea. That's the part of isolationism I mean. However that is just a part of isolationism. Obviously Libertarians aren't 100% isolationist, I just mean in the military sense...not free trade since I agree with them there.

[Bigtraine 24]

I usually vote Libertarian in local/state elections. I voted for Badnarik in 2004. Barr = though so I did not vote for them this year.

[paradoxical 1]

When I say I don't believe in isolationism, I mean I don't agree with a 100% non-interventionist military policy. For example...and I'm not sure...what is the Libertarian view on Afghanistan? I have no idea. That's the part of isolationism I mean. However that is just a part of isolationism. Obviously Libertarians aren't 100% isolationist, I just mean in the military sense...not free trade since I agree with them there.

OK, I think your concern is with fighting terrorists that have attacked the country (like 9-11). I think the libertarian response would be that we should have gone after Al Qaeda for planning/organizing/executing the attacks but not get side tracked in regime changes and nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, some libertarians would support reissuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which were put in the constitution for fighting Pirates because they have no national affiliation, like terrorists. I believe they say that the US sanctions and will reward citizens or mercenaries who find and capture or kill the parties in question.

 

check it out, let me know what you think.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

[Brad GLuckman 518]

OK, I think your concern is with fighting terrorists that have attacked the country (like 9-11). I think the libertarian response would be that we should have gone after Al Qaeda for planning/organizing/executing the attacks but not get side tracked in regime changes and nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, some libertarians would support reissuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which were put in the constitution for fighting Pirates because they have no national affiliation, like terrorists. I believe they say that the US sanctions and will reward citizens or mercenaries who find and capture or kill the parties in question.

 

check it out, let me know what you think.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

 

Thanks for the info

[BLS 313]

When I say I don't believe in isolationism, I mean I don't agree with a 100% non-interventionist military policy. For example...and I'm not sure...what is the Libertarian view on Afghanistan? I have no idea. That's the part of isolationism I mean. However that is just a part of isolationism. Obviously Libertarians aren't 100% isolationist, I just mean in the military sense...not free trade since I agree with them there.

 

Libertarians are NOT isolationists.

[wiffleball 4,645]

Libertarians are NOT isolationists.

 

...They just happen to find themselves alone an awful lot.

[BLS 313]

It'd be easier to get behind them if they didn't consistently put up whack-jobs for candidates.

 

 

Such as?

[Brad GLuckman 518]

Libertarians are NOT isolationists.

 

I know...that's what i was trying to say...with the free trade comment

[EAwer 1]

Thomas Jefferson: "Commerce with all nations, alliances with none." That is basically the Libertarian philosophy on foreign policy. Do nothing to antagonize foreign nations. Do not tell them who to elect. Do not tell them which other nations to support. Do not tell them how to run their manufacturing business (via human rights, min wage, etc), etc. If someone still decides to attack for some freckockta reason, then, well, hit them with an iron fist. And hard. Do not play games with occupying regions. Declare a war. Wage a war. Win a War. Bring the troops home. This is the American way.

 

Legalizing drugs? This is easy. Ive never heard a good argument against legalizing drugs. Ever. You own your body. What you do to it directly is your business. Not the business of the government. The second you step into a car on a gov't owned road, then it is the business of the gov't. Most people who use drugs use them for recreational purposes. Those who dont, they have a medical problem, not a problem that can be fixed by incarceration where the honest Americans pay for their shelter and food.

 

Gun control? This is also easy. Why should we have to wait to purchase guns? While it is extremely cliche', it is very true: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns. If we put a waiting period on it, it will be good for criminals who buy them off the black market. To be honest, a waiting period is not a big deal but there is no reason to have it. if some bad guy needs a gun today, he will get one today, regardless of whether or not there is a waiting period.

 

HTH, any other questions?

 

Ron Paul/Gary Johnson/Mark Sanford 2012 (hope one of them wins the GOP nom.)

[redtodd 7]

I would love to see this party gain more steam and be a serious threat in future elections. The problem is that it steals votes from the Republicans which would make the Democratic party stronger in elections.

[tikigods 76]

NH has been the libertarian party "Free State" project. We're the only state to currently uphold a no state income or sales tax. It comes with a price, higher property taxes HOWEVER we are able to vote on increases at the local level, which gives us a more "direct" democracy.

 

NH is a rural state, for the most part, so the gun issue is only made an issue by the liberals that move here from Massachusetts. We believe that it is a person's Constitutional right to maintain arms.

 

NH does not have a mandatory seat belt or motorcycle helmet law.

 

The only way to fully describe the libertarian principles is protection of civil liberties is the most important thing to us. The government has no right to act unless it is in full accordance to the guidelines of the Constitution.

[patweisers44 697]

It'd be easier to get behind them if they didn't consistently put up whack-jobs for candidates.

 

 

Such as?

OK, he's not necessarily a whack job, but their VP candidate this year was Wayne Allen Root, Champion Handicapper. One of those 1-900 gambling "advice" guys. Not necessarily what most americans are looking for in their leadership.

[tikigods 76]

OK, he's not necessarily a whack job, but their VP candidate this year was Wayne Allen Root, Champion Handicapper. One of those 1-900 gambling "advice" guys. Not necessarily what most americans are looking for in their leadership.

 

Bob Barr was a terrible choice as head of the party this year. Paul is the true face of the party.

 

As far as Root is concerned, let us remember Ronald Reagan was an actor who started next to a monkey.

[jerryskids 5,207]

Thomas Jefferson: "Commerce with all nations, alliances with none." That is basically the Libertarian philosophy on foreign policy. Do nothing to antagonize foreign nations. Do not tell them who to elect. Do not tell them which other nations to support. Do not tell them how to run their manufacturing business (via human rights, min wage, etc), etc. If someone still decides to attack for some freckockta reason, then, well, hit them with an iron fist. And hard. Do not play games with occupying regions. Declare a war. Wage a war. Win a War. Bring the troops home. This is the American way.

 

Legalizing drugs? This is easy. Ive never heard a good argument against legalizing drugs. Ever. You own your body. What you do to it directly is your business. Not the business of the government. The second you step into a car on a gov't owned road, then it is the business of the gov't. Most people who use drugs use them for recreational purposes. Those who dont, they have a medical problem, not a problem that can be fixed by incarceration where the honest Americans pay for their shelter and food.

 

Gun control? This is also easy. Why should we have to wait to purchase guns? While it is extremely cliche', it is very true: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns. If we put a waiting period on it, it will be good for criminals who buy them off the black market. To be honest, a waiting period is not a big deal but there is no reason to have it. if some bad guy needs a gun today, he will get one today, regardless of whether or not there is a waiting period.

 

HTH, any other questions?

 

Ron Paul/Gary Johnson/Mark Sanford 2012 (hope one of them wins the GOP nom.)

Sigh... I'm not necessarily arguing any of this. I'm merely pointing out that the party needs to soften its stances on topics like these, at least initially, if it wants to get elected.

[Flipper 57]

Interesting takes on the subjects.

 

I like EAwer's post regarding Jefferson's position on foreign policy.

 

Jerry's right in that we're not at the point where we can bury out head in the sand - but only because the powers-that-be have put us in this mess. Would be nice to know that if your kids make it through a war that there is no worry about occupation. The only ramification now is that with a "global economy" the nuts you leave in power elsewhere will have access to the same technology you do - thus compromising your ability to defend yourself and leaving the door more open to provokation.

 

Agree with EA on the drugs ... governments small and large need to refrain from policing recreational users or against personal abuse and enforce it in the open-spaces. Problem is that drugs = money and there are likely very influential people that will not profit from legalization and there is enough money out there to stop it.

 

The right to bear arms is paramount ... a healthy mix of poverty and removing the right to arm yourself seems like a recipe for extermination.

[IGotWorms 3,315]

Have you guys ever heard of a Hobbesian choice?

 

Thus, as long as human beings have not successfully arranged some form of government, they live in Hobbes's state of nature. Such a condition might occur at the "beginning of time" (see Hobbes’s comments on Cain and Abel, Leviathan, xiii.11, Latin version only), or in "primitive" societies (Hobbes thought the American Indians lived in such a condition). But the real point for Hobbes is that a state of nature could just as well occur in seventeenth century England, should the King's authority be successfully undermined. It could occur tomorrow in every modern society, for example, if the police and army suddenly refused to do their jobs on behalf of government. Unless some effective authority stepped into the King's place (or the place of army and police and government), Hobbes argues the result is doomed to be deeply awful, nothing less than a state of war.

 

Why should peaceful cooperation be impossible without an overarching authority? Hobbes provides a series of powerful arguments that suggest it is extremely unlikely that human beings will live in security and peaceful cooperation without government. (Anarchism, the thesis that we should live without government, of course disputes these arguments.) His most basic argument is threefold. (Leviathan, xiii.3-9) (i) He thinks we will compete, violently compete, to secure the basic necessities of life and perhaps to make other material gains. (ii) He argues that we will challenge others and fight out of fear ("diffidence"), so as to ensure our personal safety. (iii) And he believes that we will seek reputation ("glory"), both for its own sake and for its protective effects (for example, so that others will be afraid to challenge us).

 

This is a more difficult argument than it might seem. Hobbes does not suppose that we are all selfish, that we are all cowards, or that we are all desperately concerned with how others see us. Two points, though. First, he does think that some of us are selfish, some of us cowardly, and some of us "vainglorious" (perhaps some people are of all of these!). Moreover, many of these people will be prepared to use violence to attain their ends - especially if there's no government or police to stop them. In this Hobbes is surely correct. Second, in some situations it makes good sense, at least in the short term, to use violence and to behave selfishly, fearfully or vaingloriously. If our lives seem to be at stake, after all, we're unlikely to have many scruples about stealing a loaf of bread; if we perceive someone as a deadly threat, we may well want to attack first, while his guard is down; if we think that there are lots of potential attackers out there, it's going to make perfect sense to get a reputation as someone who shouldn't be messed with. In Hobbes’s words, "the wickedness of bad men also compels good men to have recourse, for their own protection, to the virtues of war, which are violence and fraud." (De Cive, Epistle Dedicatory) As well as being more complex than first appears, Hobbes's argument becomes very difficult to refute.

 

Underlying this most basic argument is an important consideration about insecurity. As we shall see Hobbes places great weight on contracts (thus some interpreters see Hobbes as heralding a market society dominated by contractual exchanges). In particular, he often speaks of "covenants," by which he means a contract where one party performs his part of the bargain later than the other. In the state of nature such agreements aren't going to work. Only the weakest will have good reason to perform the second part of a covenant, and then only if the stronger party is standing over them. Yet a huge amount of human cooperation relies on trust, that others will return their part of the bargain over time. A similar point can be made about property, most of which we can't carry about with us and watch over. This means we must rely on others respecting our possessions over extended periods of time. If we can't do this, then many of the achievements of human society that involve putting hard work into land (farming, building) or material objects (the crafts, or modern industrial production, still unknown in Hobbes's time) will be near impossible.

 

...

 

On Hobbes's view the right of nature is quite simple to define. Naturally speaking - that is, outside of civil society – we have a right to do whatever we think will ensure our self-preservation. The worst that can happen to us is violent death at the hands of others. If we have any rights at all, if (as we might put it) nature has given us any rights whatsoever, then the first is surely this: the right to prevent violent death befalling us. But Hobbes says more than this, and it is this point that makes his argument so powerful. We do not just have a right to ensure our self-preservation: we each have a right to judge what will ensure our self-preservation. And this is where Hobbes's picture of man becomes important. Hobbes has given us good reasons to think that human beings rarely judge wisely. Yet in the state of nature no one is in a position to successfully define what is good judgment. If I judge that killing you is a sensible or even necessary move to safeguard my life, then - in Hobbes's state of nature – I have a right to kill you. Others might judge the matter differently, of course. Almost certainly you'll have quite a different view of things (perhaps you were just stretching your arms, not raising a musket to shoot me). Because we're all insecure, because trust is more-or-less absent, there's little chance of our sorting out misunderstandings peacefully, nor can we rely on some (trusted) third party to decide whose judgment is right. We all have to be judges in our own causes, and the stakes are very high indeed: life or death.

 

 

That is why a libertarian utopia will never work.

[EAwer 1]

Sigh... I'm not necessarily arguing any of this. I'm merely pointing out that the party needs to soften its stances on topics like these, at least initially, if it wants to get elected.

 

Libertarianism is more than a political party, it is a philosophical train of thought. The principles are not really open up for negotiation. They tried to do that with Barr who is not really against the drug war, not really against foreign intervention, etc. He still got a minimal amount of the vote, somewhere way below 1%. We need to stay strong with our principles. We need to lead by example. People will see that Libertarianism as a way of Governmental life is the most prosperous way to run a nation.