Lincoln Chafee, a former Governor and U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, has changed his voter registration from independent to Libertarian. He now lives in Wyoming. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.
Lincoln Chafee, a former Governor and U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, has changed his voter registration from independent to Libertarian. He now lives in Wyoming. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.
Bill Weld, version 2.0? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Chafee_2016_presidential_campaign
He probably would be another Bill Weld type of candidate, which is what the LP needs to avoid.
The major parties’ loss is now the Libertarian Party’s loss.
2016 TRUMP PCTS
WY 68.2
RI 30.3
Thus – LC – undercover agent/spy for RED communists ???
He isn’t running for President. He just realized that the Libertarian party is a better match for his political views then the other parties. I welcome Lincoln Chaffee. I will wholeheartedly welcome any Republican or Democratic politician who joins the Libertarian party. It is a very good thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Chafee
How many LC machinations based on NO *principles* ???
Bit rare for a RED Donkey to switch to the LP ???
Another in a long line of GOP castoffs. I hope he is sincere and just wants to be a private citizen in another smallest state and votes for Libertarian nominees. Anything else is deeply suspect.
The LP continues to sell out, and still with no results. How long before they get John Kasich to join?
Please “me”… don’t encourage them!
Lincoln Chaffee: “I’ve decided to register as a Libertarian.”
Libertarians: “HOW DARE YOU JOIN OUR PARTY!”
Chris, the Libertarian Party has had a problem over the last 13 years with people joining the party who were former members of, and in some cases, elected officials for, the major parties, who are not really libertarian, or who are very watered down libertarian at best, and who do not have the best interest of the Libertarian Party and movement at heart. I am not necessarily opposed to somebody coming in from another party, IF they have strong principles that are in line with libertarian philosophy, but this is not what has been happening in the cases to which I am referring over the last 13 years. The Libertarian Party has been used and abused by these people. So the skepticism about Chafee is warranted.
Why in the world would anyone be opposed to someone joining their party? Isn’t the goal to get new people to join? Did you want to stay at a fraction of 1% forever?
I would get not supporting him if he ran for President. But, opposing someone just joining their party is stupid.
“But, opposing someone just joining their party is stupid.” – Michigan Voter
Hmmm… David Duke joining the GOP and running for governor of Louisiana comes to mind. Stupid? I guess it was okay he joined the party.
Did you seriously compare Lincoln Chafee to David Duke? We currently have a candidate accused of murder running under our banner for president and people are supporting him. I welcome anyone into our party.
How many D-E-A-D due to Hitler’s orders BEFORE Jan 30, 1933 ???
— his APPOINTMENT to be PM by the senile moron Prez H. in Germany
— WITH THE FATAL DEFECTS IN THE 1919 GERMANY CONST. ???
NEVER ANY SHORTAGE OF WANNABEE TYRANT DEMAGOGUES ??? —
ESP IN FATAL DEFECT REGIMES ???
—
PR AND APPV
Michigan Voter, it depends on who is joining the Libertarian Party, and why they are joining. If they are joining because they really believe in libertarian principles, and because they are really interested in advancing those principles, that is great. If they are joining because they want to subvert the Libertarian message, and sabotage the party, by turning it into “controlled opposition,” and/or if they are opportunistic con-artists, who just want to use the party for ballot access, and to soak the donor base for money while providing them with little or no real value, then these are not good reasons to join, and I do not welcome anyone who comes to the party with these intentions. The Libertarian Party has been taken to the cleaners by multiple saboteurs, con-artists, and hucksters of the years, with Bill Weld being the most recent example. I do not know what Chafee’s intentions are, but given things that have happened over the last 13 years in the LP, there is reason for skepticism.
I see the infiltration of the 90s as immeasurably worse than what’s happening now. Back then major figures in the party, notably Rothbard, openly supported people like David Duke (others and him specifically) in addition to the neo-confederate movement trying to co-opt the party. There are still some “paleos” that defend the confederacy and claim slavery had nothing to do with the civil war. I would rather have the Welds, Chafees, and potentially the Amashes of the world over that lot any day
BL-
1860 SC Secession
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Immediate_Causes_Which_Induce_and_Justify_the_Secession_of_South_Carolina_from_the_Federal_Union
Slavery monarchs/oligarchs at work.
Final failure of ALL the 1776-1860 political band-aids to keep slavery going.
—
RESULT — About 750,000 plus DEAD in 1861-1866 —
Many more war related deaths later – esp. torso/head wounds
PLUS many ex-black slaves starved to death in 1865-1866 due to econ collapse after end of fighting in Apr 1865 — esp due to destruction of southern railroads and telegraph systems.
The Libertarian Party of the 1990’s was much better than the LP of today. The LP of the ’90’s had a more hardcore libertarian message than it does today, and unlike today, the party was actually growing, reaching its peak size of around 33,000-34,000 dues paying members around 2000-2001. The LP of today has LESS THAN HALF as many dues paying members as it had in 2000-2001. Also, back in the 1990’s the Libertarian Party actually elected a few people to seats in state legislatures. The LP has not elected anyone to a seat in a state legislature in nearly two decades (it will be two decades next year). The number of elected Libertarians was actually growing in the 1990’s, and reached its peak around aroind 2003, with over 600 elected Libertarians. The Libertarian Party of today has LESS THAN ONE THIRD the number of elected Libertarians as there were in 2003. Back in 1996, and in 2000, the Libertarian Party ran Harry Browne for President. Browne was one of the best spokesman for liberty that the Libertarian Party ever had, maybe the best, and he ran on a hardcore libertarian platform. The Libertarian Party ran Michael Badnarik for President in 2004, and he was pretty solid as well, but it has been downhill since then, as I would not even call the last three LP presidential tickets libertarian.
Your comments about Murray Rothbard and the paleo strategy are absurd. First of all, Rothbard was not even really active in the Libertarian Party at the time that he wrote that article. He was still known as a libertarian, but he held no position in the LP at that time, nor was he a candidate for the party, nor was he working for a candidate for the party, nor did the article appear in any Libertarian Party publication. Second of all, Rothbard did not advocate violating any libertarian principles, he just put forth a strategy proposal for libertarians to work/coalition with conservatives on issues where they agreed, like ending Affirmative Action, cutting welfare, and protecting gun rights. Yes, he did mention David Duke (and keep in mind that Rothbard was Jewish), but he did so to point out issues Duke was running on, and gaining some popularity in his State, that happened to coincide with the libertarian/conservative issues he talked about in the paleo strategy, and he also pointed out the hypocrisy of the media and politicians who freaked out about Duke having been a former Klansman, while at the same time having no problem with big government Democrat Senator Robert Byrd also having been a former Klansman, as well as the fact that there were other politicians who has pasts as open communists, yet nobody in the mainstream freaked out over this. Regardless of the merits or demerits of Rothbard’s suggestion for a paleo strategy (and note that throughout Rothbard’s life he tried different strategies, from working with the left to working with the Libertarian Party, to the paleo strategy), this had little to nothing to do with Libertarian Party operations.
It sounds to me that you are not really familiar with the Libertarian Party in the 1990’s, or Murray Rothbard, and you are just repeating smears you have heard tossed around by other people (most of whom probably do not even know what they are talking about).
” the party was actually growing, reaching its peak size of around 33,000-34,000 dues paying members around 2000-2001″
The actual Party had only 200k registered voters in 2000, now we are over 600k. And while Harry Browne was a good Libertarian he wasn’t that good of a presidential candidate. In 2000 he finished 5th with 384k votes behind both the Reform and Green parties. Back then the Libertarian party was more of a conservatarian party than today. I would never want to go back to those times.
Bush II 2001-2009 and Obama regime paralysis [in 2009-2017 esp in 2009-2012 Great Depression II] had a bit to do with less LP activity ???
2020- even less LP due to coming statist EXTREMIST Prez cands ??? –
RED Communist Donkey — pick one from the list
BLUE Fascist Elephant — IE TRUMP
—
PR and NONPARTISAN AppV
TOTAL SOP
Andy – As I’ve pointed out to you in the past on IPR, the LP had more revenue in 2016 than in 2000 if you include donations to candidates, in particular Presidential candidates. There has simply been a shift in how donations are made – less to the LNC and more towards candidates, especially Presidential candidates.
And the difference in the number of donors isn’t as great as you would like it to appear. Between 1995 and 2005 the LP was on the Unified Membership Plan. All it was doing, for the 45 states that participated, was taking people who normally only donated to their state party and counting them as national party donors. Then it returned a chunk of the money they donated to the state parties. Except for the 2 Project Archimedes years (which was a net financial loss, but did legitimately bring in new donors), the additional donations and revenue between 1995 and 2005 were an accounting fiction.
The decline in donors had nothing to do with Barr or Johnson. The LP had 33,000 donors when Browne ran in 2000. That was the peak of the Archimedes years. By the time Badnarik ran in 2004 – after Archimedes had stopped, it was down to 20,000. By 2006 – after the Unified Membership Plan had ended – it was down to 11,000. The LNC lost all of those donors before Barr ran for President in 2008.
There were no Libertarians elected to state legislator exclusively on the LP line in the 1990s. There were several dozen who were elected with a major party cross endorsement. The LP today is much less likely to give a cross endorsement to a major party candidate, but there were 5 members of the Oregon state legislature elected in 2018 who were on the ballot with a “Libertarian” label, along with a major party.
There have been 5 Libertarians elected in its history exclusively with a Libertarian party label. 4 of those 5 were elected in multi-member districts. When Steve Vaillancourt was elected in 2000, he finished 3rd of 6 for 3 open seats. He had less than 18% of the votes cast in that election.
Take an objective look at LP party election records:
Best result for state representative? Bethany Baldes got 49% in Wyoming in 2018.
Best result for a statewide race? Mike Fellows for Montana Clerk Of The Supreme Court in 2012.
Best result for state Treasurer? Ashley Ewald in Arkansas in 2018.
Best result for Secretary of State? Ben Backus in Nebraska in 2014.
Best result for state Auditor? David Dinwiddie in Arkansas in 2018.
Best result for Attorney General? Joshua Trumbull in Washington State in 2016.
Best result for US House? Joel Balam in Kansas in 2012.
Best result for US Senate? Joe Miller in Alaska in 2016.
Best result for President? Gary Johnson in 2016.
The only best-result electoral records that weren’t set in the 2010s are for Governor, Comptroller, and state senate. But the 2nd best result for Comptroller and state senate was in 2010 and 2018.
The LP has absolutely performed better electorally in the 2010s than in the 1990s. The only reason that the LP had more people in office in the 1990s and early 2000s was that the party was running more candidates. There were 4,000 between 2000 and 2003 (2,000 local) and only 1,800 between 2015 and 2018 (617 local). The LP has a third of the people in office because it is running a third as many candidates for local offices.
Running more candidates is the only thing that the party was clearly doing better back then.
Brandon – McAfee/Supreme 2020. Now THAT’s an LP ticket!
How many LP folks in POWER offices N-O-W —
USA Rep/Sen ???
State Sen/Rep ???
How many statist laws repealed ???
How many LP laws in force ???
—
PR and AppV
Jim, the race you mentioned above for Treausurer in Arkansas was a two way race, as in the Democrats did not run a candidate, so it was Libertarian vs Republican as the only choices. Also, the Republican had been involved in some kind of scandal/controversy, so this is what led to the Libertarian in that race getting a relatively high vote total (by LP standards), but even so, it was something like 23%, which means the Republican still won by a super-majority landslide.
The LP has been around for over 48 years now. So yeah, I would expect some advancement as compared to 20 plus years ago, but by most standards, the party really has not advanced that much, and in a lot of ways, it has gone downhill.
Even with the word libertarian having become more popular, a lot of that is not because of the Libertarian Party, as it is from people operating outside the Libertarian Party, like Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Andrew Napolitano, and, John Stossel, to name a few, using the word. Ron Paul’s runs for President did more to advance the cause of liberty, and increase public recognition of the word libertarian, than anything that the Libertarian Party has ever done.
The Libertarian Party picking up protest votes when the major parties run unpopular candidates, or fail to run a candidate, so the LP candidate is in a two way race, which leads to the LP candidate getting more votes than normal, but where the LP candidate still loses by a wide margin, is not necessarily a great sign of success, or improvement, for the LP.
Jim, when you take LP revenue into consideration, you neglect to mention inflation. A dollar is worth less today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
Also, as I have proven on other threads, a lot of people who donated to Johnson/Weld were not even really libertarians, like Christy Walton from the Walton family behind Wal-Mart. These people donated because they were trying to influence the result of the presidential election between Hillary and Trump, not because they gave a crap about the Libertarian Party or philosophy, and of course Johnson/Weld did not even really run on a libertarian platform, and they downplayed the party.
Johnson/Weld was about the least libertarian ticket the Libertarian Party could have nominated.
I bet Chafee is running for president.
Andy – A two man race means everyone has 4 choices on election day: vote for the Libertarian, vote for the other guy, cast a blank ballot, or don’t vote. Only those who express a preference between the two candidates count. Why you think they make that choice isn’t relevant. All that matters is: on that day, they chose the Libertarian over the other guy. They could have cast a blank ballot. They could have stayed home. They could have chosen the other guy. They didn’t. They chose the Libertarian.
And in two way races, they are choosing the Libertarian at a greater rate than at any time in the past.
Same for sources of revenue. In 2010 Peter Schiff was running for US Senate in the Republican primary. He faced some criticism because FEC records showed he had donated to a Democrat in the past. He wasn’t a Democrat at the time. It didn’t matter why he did it (it was because the Democrat supported auditing the Fed.) All that matters is that he made the donation. Same with the LP. It doesn’t matter if someone donates to a Libertarian candidate because they like the name of his dog or they think he has good hair.
I was not ignoring inflation. See the 4th chart in my album. It combines LNC revenue and Presidential campaign revenue and is adjusted for inflation to 2016: https://imgur.com/a/YsovX
Yes, Ron Paul was responsible for a tremendous portion of the growth in the LP for the six years starting in early 2007 and going through the end of 2012. But shortly after retiring from Congress he stopped driving growth. He isn’t reaching new audiences, anymore. The audience he has left is people who remember him from 2012 or earlier. The LP, however, has continued to grow at a rapid clip.
I will not acknowledge that Rand Paul, Andrew Napolitano, or John Stossel have had the same influence on LP growth as Ron Paul. I have never met anyone who said they were a Libertarian because of Andrew Napolitano the way I have heard it said of Ron Paul… or Gary Johnson. Whether you like it or not, it is a fact that Gary Johnson brought in new Libertarians, just like Ron Paul was doing. Exhibit 1 is Larry Sharpe.
I know a lot of the candidates elected in the 90’s/early 2000’s were also for things like Soil and Water boards, which often have no ballot-listed candidates (highest write in ends up winning) or often only one candidate will get on the ballot. These offices are easy to win because they come with no compensation, are inconsequential, and viewed more as a burdensome résumé builder than a real political opportunity.
DSZ, a lot of the Libertarian who are in elected office today are in those same type of low level offices like you referenced, the only difference today is that the LP has a lot less of them.
Andy, I didn’t realize you were the ultimate arbiter of who is and isn’t a “real” Libertarian when it comes to donations. You must have personally interviewed every person who donated to the party/campaigns in the 90s to determine that all of them were “true” Libertarians. I was unaware of this amazing feat.
Jim, as you mentioned I also started to get involved in the party because of Gary Johnson. Afterward I got further involved because of Larry Sharpe and now am an incumbent (in NY) running again in Nov. It’s only a Water Board position but its something I can do while also have a full time job.
I was assuming members of the Libertarian Party wanted Libertarians to win elections and have Libertarian ideas actually come into practice. You do realize that the majority of voters you will need will not have as extreme or pure Libertarian view as many of the diehards, don’t you? I would dare say most Americans don’t check all the boxes of any party’s platform. They choose the one that is most acceptable to them. It seems that is what Chafee is doing.
Third parties continue to be stung by the self-imposed purity tests. It reminds me of when a bunch of people left the CP because one of the state party officers or candidates wasn’t sufficiently pro-life. She was still pro-life and wanted to ban abortion, but believed in exceptions for rape and incest. So since they couldn’t have every single thing exactly the way they wanted it, these people left.
I am not a member of the LP. I have voted for several LP candidates through the years though. Am I welcome to vote for them, or am I not sufficiently Libertarian to have the privilege?
Statism is ALL about who pays NET taxes — ie NET taxpayers – for 6,000 plus years.
NET Tax getters = mostly/mainly –
ALL govt officials
ALL govt biz contractors [and their employees]
ALL govt welfare persons
—–
ALL govt deficits now nearing $$$ 40 TRILLION
— due to about 30 percent annual deficits – in 1929-2019 — ZERO surplus years
[ of which ABOUT $$$ 5-11 TRILLION owed to foreign persons since early 1980s]
— possible econ crisis any second — when *just enough* foreign persons do NOT re-cycle govt debts AND DEMAND $$$ CASH
— INSTANT combo of MAJOR default, MAJOR tax increases, MAJOR spending cuts, MAJOR inflation.
Stay tuned — esp with the demagogic econ super-MORON in the White House.
Add to the 3 GROUPS — Many bigger govt interest getters [creditors/lenders — aka banks, etc.]
See inflation adjusted debts.
Being successful at achieving ballot status over a long period of time has made the Libertarian Party a tempting target of opportunists from both the left and the right.
Michael Badnarik was a solid libertarian thinker. He was not a great candidate and I would argue that the poor decision to nominate Barr in 2008 was in no small part a reaction against the choice in 2004 to go with greater ideological purity when the other top option would definitely have received more votes.
I joined the party in 2000 after coming across Harry Browne. It wasn’t Harry himself, it was the positions of the party that attracted me. In retrospect Browne was probably the best available choice both years and he certainly put in the effort of campaigning but he wasn’t particularly effective. Andre Marrou was a disaster. Ron Paul has brought people to libertarianism as a former LP presidential candidate in a way that he certainly never did during the ’88 campaign. Bergland was nothing more than a name on the ballot to try to make it through the ’84 campaign after the schism. We’re on the ballot in more states, we have greater visibility, and we are getting more votes. This idea that the 90s were some sort of Golden Era is not supported by the facts.
Whoever the Libertarians nominate in 2020 could have a decisive effect on the election. Gary Johnson flipped more states in 2016 than Jill Stein, but Jill Stein got all the flack.
Michael Badnaik was not a bad candidate. He was a good speaker, and he handled himself well in interviews and debates. He waa also a hard worker. The only problem with him is that he lacked money and name recognition, even by LP standards. His main opponents at the nominating convention, Aaron Russo and Gary Nolan, were also good candidates, and both had bigger names than Badnarik, but they split eachothers votes, and then Gary Nolan was eliminated and he endorsed Badnarik, and Badnarik won the nomination.
Ironically, the Bob Barr for President campaign did not raise that much more money than Badnaik for President. I think Barr raised around $500,000 more. Barr did get more votes, but he also ran under more favorable conditions, with the “taking votes” syndrome that was hyped up after the 2000 election was not as bad in 2008 as it was in 2004, and the Ron Paul for the 2008 presidential nomination greatly increasing public recognition of the word libertarian. If anything, the Barr campaign grossly underperformed, as the conditions were such that an LP presidential candidate in 2008 should have gotten a lot more votes than Badnarik as compared to what Barr got. Barr also sullied the reputation of the Libertarian Party, as it was pretty obvious that he was not really a libertarian, and this set the stage for two more presidential tickets that were not really libertarian after this.
Walter, how do you define opportunists? Candidates use parties as a tool to help themselves win office and take power. That is how it is supposed to work. It works that way with all parties. Political parties aren’t religions. The candidates are more important than “the party.” It is all about the candidates, as they are the people who if successful, would be taking office.
Look at your local legislative congressional or state legislative. Odds are that your representative viewed the party as a tool to help them take power. They probably did not run to be some sort of spokesperson or tool of the party.
Brandon, I spoke to two people who made lots of fundraising calls for the Libertarian Party off the Johnson/Weld campaign donor list, and they both told me the same thing, and that is that a lot of the people who donated were not really libertarian, and they did not really care about the Libertarian Party, and they admitted that they just donated with the hope of swinging the outcome between Hillary and Trump.
Also, LP dues paying membership went up by about 5,000 people in 2016, up to 20,000 and something, and the following year it dropped down to around 14,500, and was around 15,100 the last time I checked, which was around December 2018. So there was no real membership growth from Johnson/Weld 2016, and they certainly did not inspire people to become hardcore libertarians. All of the data I have seen says that a large percentage of votes that Johnson/Weld got were merely protest votes from people who did not like Hillary or Trump. Lots of people who are otherwise sympatetic to the LP and to minor party and independent candidates have made negative comments about Johnson/Weld, in that they say that they were unprincipled and/or that they came off as goofy and unprepared.
Andy – people donate or fail to donate for all sorts of reasons.
Total donors in December 2015 – 11,700, December 2016 – 20,400, and December 2017 – 15,000. That’s +3,300
Total donors in December 2011 – 14,300, December 2012 – 14,900, and December 2013 – 14,600. That’s +300
Total donors in December 2007 – 15,100, December 2008 – 16,300, and December 2009 – 14,700. That’s -400
Total donors in December 2003 – 21,000, December 2004 – 22,200, and December 2005 – 17,400. That’s -3,600
Active members in December 1999 – 33,000, December 2000 – 32,900, and December 2001 – 27,700. That’s -5,300
You can’t just measure from the peak of the campaign to a year out. If you’re going to assume the LNC donor level is influenced by the Presidential candidate a year out, you have to measure from before the campaign began.
Now, I agree that Barr was a poor candidate. And I have offered an explanation for the declines following Browne and Badnarik. You can either accept my explanation that both the rise and fall of LNC donors was due to the start and end of the Unified Membership Plan and Project Archimedes, or you can accept that Browne and Badnarik were such awful candidates that the LNC suffered horrific donor losses because of them. I’m going with the UMP + PA explanation. But that also means that Johnson left the LNC with 3,300 additional donors a year after his campaign was done.
And in case you were wondering:
Active members in December 1995 – 13,700, December 1996 – 21,600, December 1997 – 23,300. That’s +9,600.
The UMP started in 1995 and states were added a few at a time over several years. PA started in late 1997. It isn’t clear how much of that +9,600 Browne was responsible for in 1996, just like it isn’t clear how much of that -5,300 he was responsible for in 2000.
Additionally, I will point out that 10,617 people signed the Pledge in 2016, which is more than those who signed it in 2012 (5,050) and 2008 (5,276) combined (10,326). So even if some of the donors weren’t libertarian and were only hoping to influence the outcome of the election, you can’t say that about signature members. Because no one signs the Pledge except with the intent to join the party.
Brandon, it is not true at all that the Libertarian Party of the 1990’s and early 2000’s was more of a conservatarian party. If anything, that was more true in 2008 with the Bob Barr/Wayne Root ticket, and somewhat with Johnson, up until 2016 when he and Bill Weld took some left wing Social Justice Warrior stances (like using government to force bake shop owners to bake cakes for gay weddings).
Harry Browne was a hardcore libertarian, and the Libertarian Party of the 1990’s and early 2000’s was overall more hardcore libertarian than today.
Yeah, Browne only got around 384,000 votes in 2000, and 485,000 votes in 1996, but he ran under far more difficult circumstances than Gary Johnson. Browne ran against two higher profile minor party/independent presidential candidates in 1996 in Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, and in 2000 in Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan, whereas Johnson did not run against any high profile minor party or independent candidates (Jill Stein was not high profile). Also, less people knew about the Libertarian Party, or what a libertarian was, when Browne ran, whereas Johnson ran AFTER the Ron Paul campaigns of 2008 and 2012, which did more than anything to increase nane recognition for the word libertarian. There were also a lot mors people online in 2012 and in 2016 than back in ’96 and 2000 when Browne ran. Another factor that benefited Johnson, especially in 2016, is that there was more discontent with the major party candidates as compared to when Browne ran.
So Johnson got more votes than Browne, but he also ran under far more favorabke circumstances, and there are two important categories where Browne greatly outperformed. 1) Browne never came off looking like an unprinciple goofball in media appearances (unlike Johnson), and 2) Browne inspired a lot of people to become hardcore libertarians, many of whom are still active today (like myself). L
Gary Johnson received those votes because he was the third option on many ballots against the two worst major candidates in recent history, if not in the entire history of the race. The did not vote for him because he ran as a libertarian (he certainly was not and is not one).
Remember when the LP called itself the Party of Principle? Now, it’s the Party for Anyone with $25. You don’t even have to agree with or believe in the platform.
Chafee is running for President and hoping to use the LP as ballot access. If he can jam the convention with enough people, he will be the nominee. If they can court John Kasich or any other name with no shot at winning the R or D primary, they will. Don’t be shocked if Bill Weld drops his bid for the R primary and the LP welcomes him back with open arms.
I am an LP member, and I WILL NOT welcome Bill Weld back with open arms. I did not welcome Bill Weld when he popped up in May of 2016, and for good reasons. I tried to warn others, but not enough people listened (and not that the Johnson campaign had already stacked the c9nvention with delegates, and they spent 10 times as much money as all of the other candidates combined, yet they still did not win by much), and I once again turned out to be correct.
Imagine if this was the reception that Ron Paul got when he switched from the GOP to the LP. People are always fearful of change and some don’t want their “private little club” disturbed by outsiders. We need to be welcoming to new people it’s the only way to spread our message. Unless you want to go back to being the 5th or 6th biggest party instead of the 3rd.
Jim, I talked to Larry Sharpe, and he said that he was actually already familiar with libertarianism before he heard Gary Johnson. He said that he first heard about it while reading a book by Robert Ringer. He did say that Gary Johnson’s campaign in 2012 got him to take a closer look at the Libertarian Party.
I do like Larry Sharpe, and I do consider Sharpe to be a legitimate libertarian.
I will say that Johnson’s campaign in 2012 was better in terms of issues/messaging than his 2016 campaign, but even so, there were problems with his 2012 campaign I. regard to issues/messaging (like his support for the “Fair Tax” scheme), and I never trusted him, and his 2016 campaign proved me to have been correct.
The two names I hear most frequently who got people to become libertarians are Ron Paul (by far #1) and Harry Browne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War
Deja Vu — all over again ??? — USA version ???
See leftists vs utopian anarchists in Spanish Civil War >>> Franco fascist victory
— encouraged Hitler and Mussolini for WW II.
Brandon obviously does not believe in principles. Water down the message and get 3% of the vote even in local races with no one elected. Party donations and membership are both down… how is that selling out working for you?
If Hitler or Stalin or Manson was still alive Brandon would welcome them to the party as long as they coughed up $25. Beliefs mean nothing.
Brandon, the difference is that Ron Paul had a MUCH BETTER record (from a libertarian perspective of course), than Gary Johnson, and especially Bill Weld (who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, which means that he is part of the ruling establishment).
The LP has been the third largest party, by most measures, long before Gary Johnson or Bob Barr came along.
Bringing in new comers is fine, but not if they do not really share your principles. You should certainly not make new comers who do not really believe in your principles a candidate for your party.
Jim, you brought up the membership pledge. There are people who sign it, but do not really believe in it, like Bill Weld.
Andy – I’m an ancap, so I think anyone who signs the pledge and isn’t an ancap doesn’t really believe in it (that includes people who support immigration restrictions.) But I believe in a big-tent party and as a practical matter I am comfortable with taking a long series of transitional measures which shrink the government in bits and pieces, rather than eliminating it wholesale in one swoop.
But, the people who sign the pledge and aren’t ancaps still believe they are libertarians. And as long as they want to shrink the government down from its present size, I’m not going to argue with them about it. They’re allies. They don’t become enemies until they start advocating for more government. I prefer attacking enemies, rather than allies. The one exception I make to that is when allies start becoming self-destructive to the libertarian cause by attacking other allies. It’s better to kick those people out early rather than leave them hanging around to cause more damage.
Jim, I am an anarcho-capitalist, and like Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Lew Rockwell, I oppose the forced association, which is exactly what so called “open borders” is. No sane private property owner in an anarcho-capitalist society would declare “open borders” on their private property. We live in a democratic welfare state with forced association laws with lots of public (ie-taxpayer funded) property/infrastructure, and the government has a monopoly on regulating borders and immigration. So under this condition, any policy the government enacts is a state policy, including opening up borders to unlimited, no questions asked immigration, whereas in an anarcho-capitalist society, all property would be privately owned, and property owners could discriminate against whoever they want, for whatever reason. Libertarianism is about property rights. Saying that everyone on the planet should have equal access to property is not consistent with private property norms, and is anarcho-communism, not anarcho-capitalism. It is no coincidence that Marxists and globalists (and note that Marxists are “useful idiot” dupes for the globalist elite) push for “open borders” and unlimited, unrestricted immigration (a condition that would not exist in a private property anarcho-capitalist society).
If you want the state out of immigration, you need to completely eliminate the state, as in privatize everything, which also means no government welfare, no forced association laws, and no democratic elections (unless they are held by voluntary organizations).
Those who call for eliminating state immigration restrictions under any context which does not at the same time eliminate the state and turn the function over to private property owners (which includes privatizing all state infrastructure such as roads, etc…) is not really advocating a libertarian policy, and they are in fact aiding Marxists and globalists (and if they do not realize they are doing this, they are “useful idiots”).
I do not think that everyone in a political organization has to agrwe with everyone on every detail of everything. I doubt any organization exists where everyone agrees on everything.
Having said this, yes, I think that if you take libertarianism to its logical conclusion, it leads to anarcho-capitalism, however, I support the Dallas Accord, which says that anarchists and minarchists can work together in the Libertarian Party. I am an anarchist at heart, however, I see minarchy as the next best thing, and being that we are far from both, I think that if the government we live under followed its Constitution we’d be much better off.
I do not automatically discard people if I disagree with them on something. If I did, I would not support any candidates, because I can find things on which to disagree with anyone.
Having said this, a line has to be drawn somewhere between who is, and who is not, a libertarian, and I draw that line when it comes to phonies like Bill Weld, Gary Johnson, Bob Barr, Wayne Root, etc…
I could have supported any combination of candidates for President and Vice President at the national convention in 2016 who made the stage, EXCEPT for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld.
I also have a problem with the so called “Libertarian” Socialists (although I do think voluntary socialism could be done by consenting individuals on private property), like the commie guy who ran for National Chair, who got up on stage wearing a Karl Marx t-shirt, at the 2018 National Convention. “Rent is theft” is pure idiocy.
The Libertarian Party is ripe for infiltration by Deep State saboteurs and major party goons who do not really believe in the party’s principles, and it is also ripe for opportunistic con-artists and hucksters looking to bilk donors, as well as egomaniacs looking for self aggrandizement, and people with mental problems who are looking for a place to get attention. I think that most of the people in the LP are good, well meaning people, but one should beware of the aforementioned bad actors.
Chafee has never shown any intentions of shrinking government. Again, he is using this for ballot access. The idiots at the LNC will promote him like crazy, because they don’t believe in principles either.
Andy please stop inventing history. Here are some numbers from THIS website. In 2002 the size of parties was
1. Dem – 38M
2. Rep – 29M
3. Constitution – 317k
4. Green – 274k
5. Libertarian – 208k
http://www.ballot-access.org/2002/1201.html
Also, anyone that thinks having free movement of people is violating “freedom of association” are the ones that have no principles and are exactly what I was talking about when I said the party was much more conservative (and sometimes xenophobic) in the past when “paleos” were a larger chunk of the party.
Brandon, “free movement” of people is not consistent with private property. If it was, this would mean that I would have the right to move into you backyard. People can move about property so long as they do not come into conflict with property owners. What you are suggesting would only apply to unclaimed land, but once that land was claimed by homesteaders, they would be able to regulate the migration policy on that land.
Also, like I said above, we live in a defacto democratic welfare state with forced association laws and lots of public (ie-taxpayer funded) property and infrastructure. It is intellectually dishonest to act as though the current mass immigration that is hitting the USA, Canada, and multiple countries in Europe, is just the “free movement” (a concept which is not consistent with property rights) of peaceful people, when in reality, a super-majority of the migrants, and their offspring, are ending up as a drain on the welfare system, and other taxpayer funded services. Also, statistics indicate that when these people become citizens and vote, a super-majority of them vote to expand the welfare state and enact more gun control laws. Also, statistics also indicate that some of these migrant groups commit more crime than most of the existing population, and that some of tham hold views that are outright hostile to the culture of the existing population.
So it is my contention that while the state exists, and therefore has a monopoly on borders and immigration, it should regulate this function in a manner that does not invite people with Marxist or theocratic or other totalitarian ideologies into the country, nor should it invite welfare seekers, criminal thugs, or communicable disease carriers, and should any of these people sneak in anyway, they, nor any offspring they have while here, should not be rewarded with citizenship or taxpayer funded handouts, and if caught, they should be “physically removed” from the country, just as a private property owner would kick out a trespasser.
This DOES NOT MEAN, I think there should be no immigrants. Yes, some immigrants how actually believe in liberty, and who are actually productive, should be admitted. There should also be some guest workers, and of course there should be international tourists, but the current mass welfare statist migration, and demographic replacement levels of migration needs to end. The current mass welfare statist immigration is New World Order agenda and has nothing to do with libertarianism.
Brandon, the size of parties you mentioned is the number of registered voters. Only around half the states have voter registration by party. A few states did not even count the number of registered Libertarians from the time period you mentioned, because the Libertarian Party did not have party recognition status at that time. Also, I know that the Constitution Party lost status in some states due to some states disaffiliating with their national party, and/or loss of ballot status.
Even so, yes, the LP has increased in terms of the number of registered voters, however, US population has also increased, and while the word libertarian has gotten more popular (a lot of the credit for which goes to Ron Paul), the more important criteria for measuring the success of a party is the number of dues paying members, and that has gone down.
Just to be clear, I am NOT saying that the Libertarian Party has not had any advancement. It has had some. My point is that the party has not advanced as much as it should have, and that by some measures it has gone downhill.
Andy – Quit straw manning. Libertarian open borders arguments refer to government owned land, not private property. You know that.
You are completely wrong when you state that “No sane private property owner in an anarcho-capitalist society would declare “open borders” on their private property.” One of the ways roads would be built is by businesses, who connect those roads to residential areas and highways. Those businesses would want those roads to be open to anyone to travel upon because they want as many people as possible to have access to their business. Highways would be open to anyone who pays the tolls. Residential roads would mostly be open because few people want either themselves or their friends and family to bother with the hassle of paying tolls every time they go for a visit.
So the closest we can get in today’s society to the anarcho-capitalist model of roads is to allow anyone to travel upon them (perhaps subject to tolls and basic rules about speeding and such), and to leave it up to the private property owners to allow them onto their property or not.
That is not what you anti-immigrant libertarians want. You want the government to physically block international travelers at the border, regardless of the desire of property owners in the US to have them here or not. Why not just leave it up to property owners in the US? If they don’t want to rent homes or employ illegal immigrants, they should be free to make that choice. Instead, you want to make that choice for all of us. And you want the rest of us to pay for your choice.
And stop with that crap about voting. Citizenship and immigration are separate issues. It’s easy enough – and compatible with libertarianism – to disallow illegal immigrants from voting. Same with welfare and government services.
See earlier end of Western Roman Empire via multiple invasions from AD 100s to 400s.
Result- about 1,000 years of the Dark Age — rise of killer / enslaver monarch/oligarch regimes.
—-
1400s – 1700s – N/S America — native Indian tribes
Who cares if those white folks on ships from Europe are coming into our lands ???
Later —
Who cares if those black folks [slaves] on ships from Africa are coming into our lands ???
— Result- de facto GENOCIDE of North American Indian tribes to about 1890 —
few survivors naturalized in 1924 and 1940 USA laws
— worse south of the USA due to Spanish Empire super-killers.
—
PR and AppV
During that Dark Age —
English House of Commons gerrymander systems started in late 1200s.
Carried into Brit colonies in 1600s
Carried into 13 State regimes in 1775-1776
Carried into USA regime in 1787-1789.
Carried into later USA territories and all later States.
Advanced computerized pack/crack rigged districts since 1960s.
It shows every way in every day — esp RED Donkey statist communists vs BLUE Elephant statist fascists.
Govts of, by and for the OLIGARCHS and their gangster *leaders* —
NET tax getters — vs NET tax payers/slaves.
—
PR and AppV
Jim, you are the one strawmaning. The world is presently arranged into government, and government monopolize the function of regulating borders and immigration. Just because the government monopolizes a function, it does not automatically invalidate the function. The government also monopolizes firefighting in most places, so if your home catches on fire, should you just let it burn down, or are you a statist if you call the government fire department to put out the fire?
The government also establishes and manages parks. Since parks are run by government, does this mean that bums should be able to move into parks and turn them into Shanty towns, therefore ruining the park for the local taxpayers who want to use the park for recreation? Should the police not “physically remove” the bums from the park if they ruining the park for the rest of the public who pay the taxes to support the park?
It is intellectually dishonest to act as though having large numbers of foreign migrants crossing government borders has no effect on the already existing population, or that today’s mass welfare statist migration has something to do with the free market and is somehow desirable (numerous surveys indicate that a super-majority of the public wants to see immigration reduced, not just here, but also in Canada and in the countries in Europe where the traitors in their governments are inviting mass migration).
How many of these foreign migrants actually reciprocate libertarian values? How many of them reject the welfare state, and reject Affirmative Action, and how many embrace the right to keep and bear arms? All of the statistics I have seen indicate that most of today’s immigrants hold Marxist and/or theocratic ideologies, and some are outright hostile to the culture of the existing populations.
The existence of states does notjustify being overwhelmed with foreign migrants who pose a tbreat to the life, liberty, and property of the existing populations of geographic land territories.
Jim, your example about roads does not invalidate anything I said.
#1) You said that anyone who pays the toll could use the road. Well what about those people who do not pay the toll? Are you telling me that people who sneak onto the road without paying the toll should not be kicked off of the road?
#2) What if the people who paid for and own the road wanted to keep certain people out (for whatever reason)? Have you not heard of private communities which have private roads?
#3) What if squatters and bums showed up on these roads, and set up camps on the islands and shoulders of the roads? Say they stood on the sides of cars and started begging people for money? Are you saying that the road owners should not be able to kick them out in an ancap society?
#4) Suppose that people showed on on these roads with vehicles that were not authorized to be on these roads for safety reasons, like say a person showed up with a go cart, or a moped, or a motorized skateboard, or a tractor, or a horse and buggy, or etc…? Are you saying there’d be no reason to kick them off?
Oh, here’s another one. Would private road owners open up their roads to drunk drivers?
Standard question —
how about a road totally around an area ???
GIANT fee to cross the road — with or without commerce — ie folks inside are de facto prisoners ???
Prisoner revolts ???
MAJOR difference with *local* roads [gated areas, olde Middle Age castles, walled cities] versus inter-area roads ??
See olde Berlin Wall.
End of Berlin Wall >>> End of commie regimes in Eastern Europe.
Demo Rep, an anarcho-capitalist society would likely have some areas that are more open than others. Obviously, people would have a vested interested in being able to engage in commerce and to travel, so I’d bet that arrangements would be worked out so people can do these things in a manner that does not put them in conflict with others.
If I want to invite someone onto my property that is no one else’s business, especially the government’s. By having restrictive migration laws the government is saying they have say over who I can and cannot invite here. That is completely contrary to private property rights. Either way, saying you can decide who is and isn’t a real Libertarian shows a disturbing amount of hubris. If someone signs the pledge, and/or joins the party I welcome them. Whether I would vote for them for a particular office is another unrelated matter. Stop gatekeeping.
Andy —
*** Just enough *** HIGH fees to cross those roads to have the inmates / prisoners be ***just enough*** poor [ie subsistence existence) NOT to be able to be REAL capitalists — IE — NOOO ***REAL*** competition ???
Having road/FEE gerrymanders akin to having election district gerrymanders — NOOO ***REAL*** competition ???
The reptile brain usual suspects know how to exploit ALL the defects in systems.
—
PR and AppV
In our political system, we are forced to have “big tent” parties or be irrelevant. This is not like in Europe where people who share certain principles but have different takes on others can just start a new party and get on the ballot.
There are arguably 5 (probably closer to 4) that have affiliates that exist on ballots in most of the states. We choose the one we are closest to and affiliate them, recognizing that there will be major differences among members in that party. So say you are libertarian on social issues, but you think government should run public schools and public utilities. Some Libertarians will argue you aren’t a ‘real’ libertarian. But, since no party exactly matches your views, you picked the one you liked best.
It actually doesn’t matter whether other party members agree with you on anything. The job of parties is to nominate candidates. If you are a Libertarian and Lincoln Chafee joins your party, it’s really none of your business unless he is running for President and then you can oppose him. But, if he just registers Libertarian and votes for Libertarian candidates, and sits at home, what’s it to you that the two of you disagree on issues?
Michigan Voter,
Thank you. You said it better than I could
Demo – Common Law Right of Way by Necessity. Under common law no payment would be required, although some states have superseded that with statutory law which requires a one time payment.
Brandon, you can invite people, including foreigners, onto your property right now under the current laws. People can enter the country via tourist visas, work visas, or as lawful immigrants. I attended Anarchapulco 2018, which is a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist event in Acapulco, Mexico, and when I entered Mexico, Mexican government officials checked my passport, and they made me fill out a form saying where I was staying in Mexico, and how long I had to be there. When I arrived at the hotel, which was surrounded by armed guards, the hotel desk clerks checked my ID, and they gave me a room key and a wrist band, and hotel guests were supposed to wear the wrist ban. Hotel workers occasionally checked to see if people using the hotel’s facilities, such as the swimming pools, were wearing wrist bands, because they did not want people who were not hotel guests using their facilities. The Anarchapulco conference gave out badges to everyone who paid for a ticket to the event, and they had people periodically checking badges, because they did not want people sneaking into Anarchapulco without having paid for a ticket.
It is intellectually dishonest to act as though the current situation is as simple as you inviting somebody to your house (of which there are already legal channels to do this). Are the foreign nationals you want to invited to your house flying into the country and landing at your house, and if your house is not big enough for an airplane to land, are they landing at your house via helicopter? If not, then they have to cross other people’s property, as well as taxpayer funded property (like roads) to get to your house. Also, are they just staying at your house, and not leaving your property? If not, then they have to to onto other people’s property, as well as in the commons paid for by the American taxpayers. Do you have a job for them, and will it be enough for them to support themselves and any family they have, or are they independently wealthy? If not, will you support them if they can’t afford to support themselves, or will you pass these costs onto the taxpayers via government welfare programs and other government services? Are these people going to stay at your house long enough to obtain American citizenship, and will you teach them about libertarian principles, and about the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, and if they vote, will they be small government voters, or will they become non-voting anarcho-capitalists? Will you ensure that these foreign guests of yours don’t commit any crimes, and if they do, will you be held responsible for any damages your foreign house guests/tenants do?
Reality is likely that you don’t plan to invite any foreigners to your house. I’ve heard this argument many times before, and I think it is a bad argument. Things are not so simple as inviting somebody to your house, and even if it was, it still would not be so simple, because even condominium complexes, apartment buildings, gated communities, and motels/hotels, all have rules/restrictions concerning bringing in guests. We are talking about mass movements of millions of people, most of whom were not in fact invited. We live in a country that has a welfare state, and lots of other taxpayer funded programs and infrastructure. Who enters the country impacts all of these things, and reality is that there are around 330 million Americans, and outside of this country, there are over 7.3 billion more people in the world. A lot of these people, not all of course, but a large number, live in countries that have significantly worse living conditions than we have here, and a lot of these people are attracted to coming here so they can “live a better life” at the expense of the American taxpayers. The statistics clearly indicate that a super-majority of modern day immigrants, and their offspring, are on welfare, and are a drain on not only the welfare system, but also all of the other programs and infrastructure paid for by the taxpayers. I read an article recently that said that 72% of immigrant households in California are on welfare. I read an another article that said that 91% of Muslim migrants (who came here under the Refugee Resettlement Act, which is a government welfare program) are on welfare, and they remain on welfare for many years, and that even out of the ones who do work, most of them are working menial, low paying jobs, and are mostly only working part time. These immigrants on welfare are also statistically having more children than most of the rest of the population, and they are using the hospitals at the expense of the taxpayers, and under the current (mis)interpretation of Birthright citizenship, the children of non-citizen immigrants, including ones who entered the country illegally, are being granted citizenship, which entitles them to even more welfare handouts, and which through chain migration, allows them to bring in more family members.
Not only does immigration effect taxpayer resources going welfare, and other government services and infrastructure, which means more people competing over scare resources, which leads to conflict, it also effects election results, as the new immigrants, and their offspring, become American citizens, and gain the ability to vote. The statistics illustrate that a super-majority of modern day immigrants, and their offspring, vote to increase the welfare state, and for higher taxes, and for more gun control laws. The immigrant voting block is flipping elections across the country, and the policies that they support are NOT in the best interests of libertarians, as in people who want smaller government.
Mass immigration also impacts crime, and the statistics clearly indicate that some of the large immigrant groups coming into the country commit more crime than most of the rest of the population.
Oh, and for anyone reading this who thinks that anyone should be able to waltz into the country with no questions asked, there is also the issue of communicable diseases. Some of these people come from countries where carrying deadly diseases, like Ebola, is more common. Do you really want people carrying diseases like Ebola to just walk into the country, with not questions asked?
IF we lived in a libertarian anarcho-capitalist society, there’d be no welfare or other taxpayer funded programs for immigrants to leech off, and there’d be no democratic elections (unless they were held by voluntary elections, and the result of said elections would only apply to those who consented to it), so there’d be no worry about how the immigrants are going to vote. If we lived in such a society, the people who don’t want immigrants, or don’t want certain immigrants, could exclude them from their property, as in they would not be forced to associate with them. If we lived in such a society, the free market would have to come up with ways to deal with communicable disease carriers.
REALITY is that we don’t live in a libertarian anarcho-capitalist society. We live in a society that has a state, and the state monopolizes the function of regulating borders and immigration, so I do not think that it is unreasonable to say that while the state exists, it should not invite people into the country who pose a threat to the life, liberty, and property of the existing population, nor should it invite in so many people that they displace the existing population, and should any of these people sneak in anyway, the state should not reward them with taxpayer funded handouts or citizenship, and if they are caught, the state should kick them out, just like a property owner would kick out a trespasser in and anarcho-capitalist society.
Brandon said: “Either way, saying you can decide who is and isn’t a real Libertarian shows a disturbing amount of hubris. If someone signs the pledge, and/or joins the party I welcome them. Whether I would vote for them for a particular office is another unrelated matter. Stop gatekeeping.”
There is a saying among martial artists, such as jiu jitsu practitioners, that one becomes a black belt in a martial art, such as jiu jitsu, when other practitioners of that art say that you are a black belt. There are people who have gone around in the martial arts world claiming to black belts, and claiming to be experts in this or that, and claiming to have impressive fighting records, who turned out to be frauds. Some of these people even opened up Martial Arts schools, and some even said that could train people to fight professionally. Somebody came up with a derisive term to describe these martial arts schools. They call them McDojos (as in taking the Mc from the McDonald’s hamburger chain, and combing it with the word dojo, which is the Japanese word for a martial arts school). There was a thread that got lots of hits on a popular MMA message board about fake black belts.
So much like there are fake black belts, there are also fake libertarians. Fake libertarians are people like Bill Weld, or Bob Barr. Like the fake black belts, they go around claiming to be libertarians, and they even con some people into believing them, like the ones who go to the McDojos. Some of those who go to the fake black belts for training never realize that their instructor is a fraud, but some get a reality check when they enter a fight competition and lose, often times badly.
How does one know when they are a libertarian? When other libertarians say that you are a libertarian. Considering that I’ve been in the Libertarian Party and movement since 1996, and I studied under such libertarian “grandmasters” as Harry Browne, Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, to name just a few, I think that my qualifications are pretty good to say who is, and who is not, a libertarian.
My definition of who is a libertarian is not so strict that I say that only people who agree with me on every detail of everything are libertarians. Even though I think that if you take the libertarian philosophy to its logical conclusion, that it leads to anarcho-capitalism, I am willing to say a person who favors a very, very limited state, can be a libertarian. 2004 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Michael Badnarik, was a constitutionalist, not an anarcho-capitalist, but he wanted to limit government to only what was specifically listed in the US Constitution, which means he wanted to reduce the size of the federal government by around 95%, and he advocated that the part of the federal government that remain engage in a peaceful foreign policy (as in no searching throughout the world for dragons to slay), and keep the constitutionally authorized tariffs, duties, and excise taxes, to a minimal level. I would call Michael Badnarik a libertarian.
IF a person calls for large, across the board cuts in government, I will generally call them a libertarian, but I have seen a lot of frauds over the years, so I don’t throw the libertarian label around lightly. I have talked to people over the who claimed to be libertarians, who turned out not to be, and I’m not just talking about candidates like Bill Weld and Bob Barr (to name just a couple of the charlatons who conned their way into LP nominations). I have met people that most people, or maybe even nobody, reading this have ever heard of who claimed to be libertarians, but who, upon my further examining them, turned out not to be. Here’s a famous example. Remember comedian/talk show host Bill Maher called himself a libertarian at one time? This was years ago, and fortunately he stopped calling himself a libertarian, because he is not, and never was, but he did call himself a libertarian at one time, and this did some damage to the libertarian brand, because Bill Maher was never really a libertarian. I ran into people over the years who had misconceptions about what a libertarian was, because they heard Bill Maher call himself a libertarian.
I believe in somewhat of a “big tent” Libertarian Party and movement, as in I recognize that everyone is not going to agree on everything, but there comes a point where a line has to be drawn somewhere. What Brandon calls “gatekeepingm,” I call brand protection. IF the word libertarian gets dumbed down, abused, and misused, to the point where people who think that a guy who calls for the federal government to form a task for to decide who can and can’t purchase guns and ammunition, and that this task force can put people on this list without a trial, or without even telling people why they are on the list, and with no way for them to get off of the list, and who also called for banning assault rifles, and who said that hand guns are a problem, all of which Bill Weld advocated as the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Vice President, is a libertarian, than the term libertarian is meaningless at that point. Bill Weld also said that he supports the present income tax and the Federal Reserve System, and he that he thinks that Hillary Clinton is wonderful (Gary Johnson said this as well, even going so far as calling Hillary Clinton “a wonderful public servant”), and in a post campaign interview with Reason Magazine, he said that he thinks that the US military should engage in “saber-rattling” from time and engage in air strikes, in order to project its might. These are just a few of examples of why Bill Weld is not, and never has been, a libertarian. So yes, I want to defend the libertarian brand against people who misuse the term, which is how we end up with people like Bill Weld calling themselves libertarians, or else the word libertarian will lose its meaning, much like the terms liberal and conservative don’t really mean anything anymore.
This does NOT mean chasing everyone off who does not agree with me on every detail on everything. No group of people is going to agree with everyone else in the group on every detail of everything. I am talking about applying some standards though, because if there are no standards, then the word libertarian loses its meaning, and the Libertarian Party runs more Bill Weld type of candidates, at which point the party might as well not even exist anymore, as it would just be a LINO Party (Libertarian In Name Only). One might as well go join the Democrats or the Republicans at that point.
Demo Rep, once again, if we lived in an anarcho-capitalist society, there’d still be incentives to trade and travel. I’d be willing to bet that people would find ways to do it without coming into conflict with others, and if they did come into conflicts with others, oh well, I’m sure there’d still be problems in the world even if the world went ancap. Utopias are not likely to ever exist.
Andy said it better than I ever could. Chafee is the latest of the frauds who will hurt the brand. Glenn Beck also famously called himself a libertarian, but when you study him more closely, he is not.
So in order to be a “real” Libertarian you need the approval of the group collective to designate you as one. I have never heard of anything less Libertarian than this.
Glenn Beck once apologized for calling himself a libertarian and said instead that he was only very libertarian leaning. But I once saw Beck on John Stossel’s show advocating for privatized national defense, which is a hell of a lot further than most libertarians would be willing to go.
It turns out, a bunch of libertarians actually took a vote on whether Barr, Johnson, and Weld were libertarians. A majority said yes. In Johnson’s case, twice.
I will defer to Dean Russell on who is a libertarian, since he is the one who gave the term its modern American definition.
As a general definition, libertarian is synonymous with classical liberal, or what we sometimes call today a minarchist. Essentially, someone who advocates equality under the law and maximum individual liberty.
It can also be defined more narrowly, as the non-aggression principle. Dean didn’t use that term, but he basically described it.
Or it can be defined more broadly, as opposition to authoritarianism. That definition conceivably includes not just ancaps and classical liberal minarchists, but also modern liberals. Modern liberals advocate for more basic government services than classical liberals, provided that those services are more or less universally available. Things like indigent safety nets, government education, environmental regulations, worker safety standards, and porous, but not open borders which screen for criminals and illness. If they’re particularly left leaning, universal healthcare or some type of universal basic income or negative income tax.
I would classify Johnson and Weld as modern liberals, with Weld being more towards the left edge because of a few issues, like mandatory health insurance. A few of Weld’s stances, like on gun control, cross the line, but he has moved our way a bit on that (people’s position’s on issues aren’t permanently fixed), and he fits better into the definition of a modern liberal than he does anywhere else.
Jim, I disagree that a bunch of libertarians took a vote and decided that Bob Barr, Wayne Root, Gary Johnson, Bill Weld, etc…, were libertarians. I was at those conventions, and I voted against all of them. I do not believe that all of the delegates at those conventions were really libertarians. Sure, the joined the Libertarian Party, but all this meant is that they filled out a pledge they did not believe and paid at least $25 to the LNC, and got seated as delegates. I know for sure that delegate stacking took place, and that some of those people joined shortly before, or right at those conventions, and a lot of them left the party right after that. Sure, there were some longer term LP members that voted for them, and maybe some were actually real libertarians who got duped, or who figured it may be worth it to sacrifice some principles in order to run candidates with fancy credentials and some name recognition. It Also would not surprise me if some of those long term LP members are not really principles, and some coukd even be government plants.
A better example of a room full of libertarians would be the Anarchapulco Conference or a Mises Institute event. I attended Anarchapulco 2018, and I did not encounter one person there who thought that Gary Johnson and Bill Weld were really libertarians.
Bill Weld is a ruling establishment shill. So is Gary Johnson at the end of the day. Neither are really libertarians.
The heart and soul of libertarianism is property rights and the Non-Aggression Principle. This is a better, and more accurate, description than “socially liberal, and fiscally conservative.”