Essay on Libertarians

Oct 04, 2006 17:00

There's a few libertarians on my friends list.  I was considering writing up an essay explaining why, on the federal level, voting for Democrats best serves the libertarian ideals.  I've found an essay that says the less inflammatory things my essay would say.

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fruitylips October 5 2006, 00:43:07 UTC
*phew* At first I was afraid you were going to point us at Kos's lunacy. I got a chuckle from the reply at asecondhandconjecture.com that asked "Since libertarians already know quite well how to lose elections, what do we need you for, Markos?" :-)

Unfortunately this article then says:
"New Democrat answers like banning earmarks, closing the revolving door, and ending the incumbent protection racket by requiring competitive congressional districts, by contrast, will keep government in check."

If these were actually Democrat answers, I'd happily vote for them, but this statement is laughable. I'd love to see a well functioning Democratic party, but making up nonsense about what the Democrats historically and current support is nonsense. For all of these, the Democrats are up to their elbows in continuing the status quo as much as the Republicans are. There are a few Democrats that support these kinds of things, but there are also a lot of Republicans that do as well (*). In both parties, tho, most of the people in power want nothing to do with any of it.

I had hoped that a Republican majority would convince more Democrats that Federalism really is a good idea. Mostly its convinced them that 'our team is better'.

As it is, much like who I voted for in '04, I live in a safely partitioned Democratic district in a safely Democratic State where the Democratic legislature has repeatedly killed any attempts to make the districts less safe for the incumbents, so it doesn't much matter who I vote for. I'll probably waste my vote on the slate of Libs again.

(*) - The Colburn/Obama amendment was refreshingly bipartisan. Of course both Stevens and Byrd put a hold on it. I suppose that's more a case of predictably bipartisan, tho.

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fruitylips October 5 2006, 01:45:39 UTC
As in '02 and '04, this article makes the same point that hasn't worked as a campaign strategy for the Democrats in '02 and '04. It is easy to make a case *against* voting for a Republican these days. The Democrats have been miserable at coming up with a message of why you should vote *for* them.

Until, as a party, they can come up with something relevant and compelling, they'll continue to be a bunch of also rans. They'll still win the occasional election here and there, we'll be stuck with Republicans. Honestly, I think winning the House in '06 is the worst thing possible for the long term survival of the Democratic party.

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ossuarian October 5 2006, 02:33:18 UTC
It's easy to make a case for voting against Republicans, and with the incumbents, it's worth doing. It'd be worth having a different government exactly as bad as the existing government because the new government wouldn't spend most of its energy keeping its secrets from the last seven years (well, in Bush's case, the last thirty).

It's easy to attack a position without putting anything concrete forward, as you demonstrate frequently. Sadly, it's also easier to quote attacks, so some innovative stuff gets put forward, but it doesn't make the news.

As for the elections being identical, I believed that in 1999, but nobody who's paying attention thinks that now.

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fruitylips October 5 2006, 12:35:57 UTC
Amusingly, 'try to woo Republican libertarians away and actually win an election' is a concrete solution that I've been advocating for years. Nice job lunging at the silly, self righteous non sequitur. We already knew you were a liberal, so you didn't actually need it to establish your bona fides.

That it has taken an yet another impending election failure before any actual Democrats decided to consider it is telling. The Social Conservative/Business/Libertarian alliance of the last 35 years stopped making sense for libertarians as soon as the other two figured out that they were in power, so 'small government' was a tactic they were better off without. Maybe your Party as a whole will decide it is a more useful strategy then going after the Hugo Chavez vote now. I tend to doubt it.

Good luck. Maybe this time around you can get the Republicans to continue imploding and actually stay out of their way and let them do it. If history is any judge, y'all won't.

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