The Libertarian Party Still Loves Ron Paul
Brian Doherty | November 19, 2007, 5:35pm
In what Alabama state LP chair (and former national LP employee) Stephen Gordon is calling an "unprecedented" move, the national LP, in a press release pushing their new "Liberty Decides" program (which basically allows people to show support for potential LP presidential candidates by donating in their name), notes their own party members enthusiasm for GOP candidate Ron Paul. In an email from national LP executive director Shane Cory that Gordon quotes:
due to the quantity of respectful e-mails, letters and phone calls that I receive from our own members, even if I tried, I could not ignore the fact that many Libertarians are excited about the candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. In no way, shape or form, can I ignore the positive impact Dr. Paul’s campaign is making on America. I’m not asking you to do that either.
If you are a supporter of the Paul campaign and you want to send a message to the delegates of the 2008 Libertarian National Convention, you have the option to do so with this new program. If you are hopeful that Ron Paul (or another candidate) will seek the LP nomination, even as a “Plan B,” you can make a donation to show your support for a future/unannounced candidate (please include your preferred candidate’s name in the comment box when donating). Also, if you feel that the LP should not run a presidential candidate in 2008, you can put your support behind NOTA (none of the above).
Ron Paul was already the LP's presidential candidate in 1988, and remains a life member of the party. My July article on some reasons libertarians have been leery of the Paul campaign--and why in my judgement they shouldn't be.
Elemenope | November 19, 2007, 7:36pm | #
No, no alternate universe. BTW, I think that American Libertarianism, while it may take its economics from the Austrian school, finds most of its historical grounding and claim from American Constitutionalism. Hence, while some of the issue might not be
directly Libertarian, they follow from the Constitutionalism that has always been a fairly tight companion to Lib thought in the US.
Overall, the Dems have been better than the Repubs on drugs, civil liberties, and corporate welfare. I didn't say they were saints and angels; all I said was they were better than the Republicans, and at least they pay lip service to those issues the way that Repubs pay lip service to "small government". The difference, I think, is occasionally the dems actually try their rhetoric out.
It was democrats and not republicans who first started talking about drug abuse as a medical rather than a criminal issue and have fairly consistently pushed that direction while repubs were content to stuff the prisons and build more when those got full. On civil liberties, most erosions have been from the drug war (historically a republican policy) and from terrorism-scare measures which, aside from R. Paul, were swallowed whole by repubs. The only significant resistance aside from him, however feeble, came from the democratic side of the aisle. The only one on this I'll give you is the 2nd amendment, and I mentioned that in the original post.
And, in the guise of "privatization", which is repub code for "crony no-bid contract system" repubs are the kings of giving tax money to private interests for, well, no good reason. Again, the dems win, if only marginally.
Come on, SIV, the Republican party has gone so far and deep into the Dark Side that it is painful to see Libertarians still line up like lemmings for them. At least Ron Paul gets to show them something of what a libertarian republican is supposed to look like.
Marc Scott Emery | November 19, 2007, 9:57pm | #
Mayor Giuliani had 283,000 New Yorkers arrested (many jailed overnight for one night minimum) in his 8 year term for marijuana-related offenses, up from 84,000 in the previous 8 years of NYC administration (when non-libertarians Koch & Dinkins were Mayor).
Giuliani has said he will accelerate even those draconian arrest rates once he is President. Giuliani has boasted on the campaign trail, " No one has had more drug users arrested than me. " This is a record and a boast of authoritarianism, or despotism. This is not libertarian in any way whatsoever, certainly not "mainstream libertarianism".
By contrast Ron Paul said he would repeal the entire federal war on drugs, end the Drug Czar's office, terminate the DEA, respect states rights on medical marijuana & industrial hemp. Ron Paul has promised to pardon the pot people, end mandatory sentencing, and is promising, as his 10 term Congressional voting record validates PERFECTLY & CONSISTENTLY, to be completely libertarian in his policies and philosophy regarding personal drug use. He has promised to uphold the Constitution, none of which empowers the US federal government to wage a drug war, or regulate drugs in any way.
Giuliani has not been endorsed by any well known or recognized libertarians for this Presidential election. A person who recommends Giuliani, who has no libertarian tendencies, is ergo, themselves not a libertarian. If Hilary Clinton endorsed a tax cut, does this make her libertarian? Good grief, no.
Eric Dondero is an angry, vicious racist (you should hear the filth he spewed against peaceful US Muslim citizens on his radio show where I was unfortunately a guest who had to hear this cruel invective) with the most deviated idea of libertarianism I have ever beheld. His shilling for Israel is the real reason he supports Giuliani, that and his admiration for a Mussolini-type strongman who promises to annihilate the Islamic world with militarism.
Elemenope | November 19, 2007, 11:41pm | #
SIV - You can't find any libertarian democrats on the national field, just as you can't find them in the republican field...except Ron Paul, the anomaly, the example that disproves the rule. The only real difference is that democrats are by-and-large not pretending to be something they're not, which the republicans have been doing for decades, and libertarians have by-and-large lined up and dutifully salivated at Pavlov's bell of "small government, I promise!". It was that devil's bargain they made to halt the threat of Global communism (as if the democrats wouldn't), and then they forgot why they made it.
When it comes to "the ideology of the individual", conservatism in America has almost never been about the individual in any duly philosophically respectful way; paleo-cons talk about personal responsibility, but always do so in a way that makes clear that the responsibility is owned of the person to the
society, not to other free persons. And, surely enough, when power comes into their hands they are just as willing to crush the individual for the greater good. It seems more palatable to you that when they do so it is cloaked in rhetoric more comfortable to your ideals? Then you've been played.
Libertarianism can just as naturally evolve from a leftist position as a rightist one. I know, as that's where I approached Libertarianism from. I grew up in a liberal household, and still value many of the ideals that come from that tradition: respect for difference, a concern for the downtrodden, a commitment to justice as social healing instead of retribution. However, I slowly began to realize as I got older that the world I wanted to see created could not be forced upon people, and also that the power of the state inevitably corrupts all good intentions. I still care about most of the things all good liberals (tm) care about; I just don't believe that the coercion of the state (nor any other coercion that deprives the action of willful intent) is a proper instrument to create the things I seek.
It is a distortion, both of history and of present reality, to argue that Libertarianism is in better hands or makes better friends with Republicans instead of Democrats, which is what this argument was about from the start. That many of you have drunk the Republican kool-aid is one of the reasons that I have hesitated for so long to call myself a Libertarian. I have no desire to be associated with that party who shares none of my ideals but is willing to lie about it to get elected.
