The Libertarian Party

Tom Evslin tracked back to me with his excellent follow up post on legalizing drugs.

In that post, he linked to The Libertarian Party's website.

So I've been aware of The Libertarian Party since I began to focus on politics as a teenager, but I never really paid any attention to them.

After spending some time on the website, I'd have to say that if they were a viable alternative, I'd have to take them pretty seriously.

I don't totally agree with their views on taxation and social security.

And I don't totally agree with their views on foriegn policy.

And I definitely don't agree with their position on guns.

But I believe that The Libertarians have got a lot of things right.

The Democrats should look their way in trying to figure out what a new Democratic party should look like.

Comments

[Mike Orren]

The trouble with the Libs is that they've become such a "fringe" party, at least in terms of the candidates they tend to put up that you've got a case of "Libertarianism is great -- it's the Libertarians that ruin it."

And I should know -- I ran a Libertarian congressional campaign for a friend of mine a couple years ago.

Unfortunately, parties tend to be recognized by their candidates. And there isn't a strong enough third-party movement to draw strong candidates in as Libs.

That's why I always introduce myself as a "small l" libertarian.

[Stephen Bronstein]

Yeah, small 'l' for me as well. Badnarik (candidate in '04):

- refuses to get a driver's license

- believes that federal income tax is unconstitutional and therefore has not paid it in a number of years

- doesn't use zipcodes because he believes they are 'illegal federal territories' or something like that.

Check out Reason Magazine / RPPI for a more 'reasonable' libertarian perspective.

And yes, it would be great if the Democrats would look to libertarian dynamism to form the new party. Alas, I think that the powerful unions (especially the teacher's unions) who dominate the party and are stuck in the past will keep this from ever becoming a reality. Hopefully the Democrats will prove me wrong.

[hey]

there are some small ls working with the dems, but we're mostly republicans (or at least those who want to be politically effective)

not a lie: in 02 cycle, one of the candidates (in sf i think) ended up BLUE cause he took some far out alternative therapy. there are some really weird people that run as LP candidates. strongly libertarian groups or parties also tend to fall for the marxist disease of being massively overdoctrinaire. purity tests, peoples front of judaea vs judaean people's front kind of crap, but thats par for the course in 3rd parties (no prospect of power to paper over divisions).

as for whether dems can actually adopt policies... I'd like to see someone do it, though the reps tend to be closer, as their base can be mollified by libertarian policies more than dems can. most of religious right is responding to left wing activism re schools etc, and would prefer government to leave them alone. there's very little support within the left for a less government involvement policy.

[Josh Kerbel]

If you are interested in some libertarian econocmics, you may want to read up on the Austrian School of Economic thought.

A good place to get a peek is http://www.mises.org