Barring the door
There are several legitimate ideological reasons to deny Bob Barr the Libertarian Party nomination for President. Several of them are listed here. I can definitely see Libertarians rejecting a candidate who supports widespread intervention abroad or who supports the drug war. These are not trivial objections, and I look forward to seeing the party hash them out at the convention next weekend.
That having been said: these legitmate objections do not stand alone. No, as the LP has a habit of doing, these perfectly reasonable questions of policy are getting tangled up in yet another purity purge. Take it away, Joshua Katz:
The Ron Paul campaign opened many people to hearing about freedom – the LP must now run a candidate who can continue to feed this interest, in addition to attracting more. To do this, the candidate must be uncompromisingly radical – people can only be inspired by a candidate able to present, in a convincing way, the hope of a world without coercion. It is imperative that the LP put forward a consistent, principled libertarian, one well-versed in the libertarian scholarship, in order to continue the educational task. Every day, I meet people who are reading Bastiat, Mises, Hoppe, Rothbard, and Menger because of Ron Paul. I have students who are asking questions about liberty, and about Mises, because they saw my Ron Paul poster and looked him up. A Republican retread, who is moderate on issues which require radicalism, will not attract the same interest.
Ah, the old bait-and-switch. Yet again, the same party which trots out the Nolan quiz as a means of defining an entire quadrant of the population as their allies wants to cast aside all of those potential supporters in favor of the “uncompromisingly radical.” And now it’s not even about the actual policy stances anymore. It’s about what books you read.
The party has wandered in the wilderness for 35+ years. Every time it moves towards actually influencing the course of public policy, those in power within the party choose to saw off the limb the rest of us are standing on. Now, with the Ron Paul movement drawing inprecedented interest in pro-liberty ideologies, some within the party want to jettison potential of a mass movement, one involving pro-liberty thinkers of varying intensities and orientations, in favor of an ideological reeducation camp.
The party needs to be very careful about how it handles this weekend’s opportunity. A Bob Barr nomination is not an absolute necessity, but it will be very interesting to see on what grounds he loses the nomination. One thing the Ron Paul movement has taught us is that the Libertarian Party is not a necessary ingredient in the movement towards greater personal freedom. The Ron Paul movement WILL go on, one way or another. This tone adopted this weekend will help determine whether the LP assumes a leadership role within the movement, or whether, to them, purity of thought is more important than, you know, actually increasing individual liberty in the real world.
In which case, the rest of us will leave them behind.
If there’s a ticket to irrelevance, it might say ‘uncompromisingly radical’ upon it.
Comment by Adam — 5/13/2008 @ 3:00 pm
Very, very good post.
Comment by daveg — 5/13/2008 @ 4:10 pm
BTW, the new cover of the American Conservative really made me laugh.
Amcon
I remember when National Review used to have some good covers. Not so much any more.
Comment by daveg — 5/13/2008 @ 4:13 pm
Permit me to remind you that one of the reasons we Libertarians don’t much see much difference between the Rs and the Ds is that, in an effort to attract more voters, they have both been marching steadily toward that great be-all-things-to-all-people, please-all-the-people-all-the-time middle wasteland.
On the other hand, you can’t win an election if nobody votes for you. As we well know.
I’m going to go sit in the corner with my blanky now.
Comment by RoTalMomska — 5/14/2008 @ 10:01 am
If the LP thinks it’s in imminent danger of becoming too centrist, or of pleasing all the people all the time, then the LP has lost touch with reality.
My greatest sympathy lies with those LP members who work very hard on outreach efforts, donating countless hours of their time to organization and recruiting opportunities, only to see their attempts continually devalued by the purists’ purges. I hope that in Denver those people will stand up for themselves.
Comment by Rojas — 5/14/2008 @ 1:48 pm
We can’t increase liberty because we can’t get our candidates elected.
You can’t increase liberty becaue you get your candidates elected, and they make the government bigger and stronger.
Comment by RoTalMomska — 5/14/2008 @ 9:03 pm
At least they’re failing at success. The Libertarian Party have a stranglehold on succeeding at failure.
Comment by Adam — 5/14/2008 @ 9:24 pm
Well, then the ideal solution for both of us would be for your candidates to attempt to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate, wouldn’t it?
Does Katz’s strategy strike you as an effective step in that direction?
Comment by Rojas — 5/14/2008 @ 10:40 pm
I believe you yourself have said that the majority of American voters don’t want a smaller government. Appealing to a broader segment of a group of people who don’t want liberty is a strange way to increase liberty.
Or, to put it another way,….
And since nobody can get elected without that broad appeal, that leaves us with education of the electorate. Or secession.
When I figure out how to do either one of those successfully, you will be one of the first to know.
Comment by RoTalMomska — 5/15/2008 @ 7:46 pm
Well, that last post was supposed to have a link from “…to put it another way” to this: http://www.joyfulcynicblog.com/?p=31.
Who stole the little link icon?
Comment by RoTalMomska — 5/15/2008 @ 7:52 pm
If you can point me towards any empirical evidence that the “seesaw” bit is actually working, I’ll gladly hear it.
Seems to me that thirty-five years of complete irrelevance is persuasive evidence to the contrary–especially when we consider that more moderate pro-liberty organizations such as CATO actually have changed the agenda during the same time span.
Comment by Rojas — 5/15/2008 @ 8:39 pm
I have no such evidence.
What additional liberty do you have as a result of the efforts of the more moderate groups?
You. Personally.
Comment by RoTalMomska — 5/16/2008 @ 8:08 pm
I should say that, as a result of CATO’s prominent influence in the Reagan coalition of the early 1980s, my taxes are dramatically lower than they would otherwise be.
Instead, I reject the question. The liberty of any individual American is as important as my own. Advances in liberty do not need to be experienced by people who live relatively comfortable and repression-free lifestyles–such as myself–in order to be meaningful.
Parents in Milwaukee, Baltimore, and elsewhere have the freedom afforded by school choice vouchers. Individual Americans in various jurisdictions have enhanced (though incomplete) freedom to consume marijuana for medicinal purposes. Owners of businesses in blighted areas experience a greater degree of freedom from burdensome government regulation through the operation of enterprize zones. Students in high schools and on college campuses have defenders in their fight against curricular restrictions and speech codes. And gun owners throughout the United States are free to exercise their second amendment rights.
Every single one of these advances in freedom was brought about by organizations willing to advocate increased but imperfect liberty.
Comment by Rojas — 5/16/2008 @ 8:19 pm
And my own little radical group was instrumental in saving a local bike shop owner from having his property taken by eminent domain and handed over to a private developer.
As you know very well, I’m a lot better at theory than application, so I’m going to say something that likely can’t be proven or disproven — but I believe it with all my heart.
Few difficult but worthwhile projects ever get accomplished without an initial radical surge. I also agree with you that, for the sake of practicality, some moderation must come after the initial upheaval.
HOWEVER, some radicals MUST continue to sit on the far end of the seesaw and keep tugging the moderates in that direction, lest the movement compromise itself into meaninglessness.
Comment by RoTalMomska — 5/16/2008 @ 8:53 pm
My congratulations on the bike shop; that’s a truly honorable and worthy endeavor.
Did it come about as a direct result of the refusal of the LP to compromise and the LP’s willingness to expel people for heresy?
Or did it come about because people in the LP chose to stop debating theory and conducting purges and actually engage in meaningful action? Which “compromises” by the LP would have rendered this action ineffective?
Here’s hoping for more constructive action by the LP along these lines–and much, much less self-destructive action.
Comment by Rojas — 5/16/2008 @ 9:31 pm
I think that RoTalMomska may have to purge her own familial group of unbelievers and recidivists.
Comment by Adam — 5/16/2008 @ 10:03 pm
Always trying to binge on new recruits, and constantly purging them afterwards. Never able to carry any weight in elections. Is the LP the Bulimic Party?
Comment by Rojas — 5/16/2008 @ 10:35 pm