Meanwhile, Back at Cato Unbound

The Daily Kos, Harold Meyerson, and I all have follow-up blog posts up over at Cato Unbound, so check 'em out, why dontcha?

And someone send out a search party for Bruce Reed.

Comments

[joshua corning]

After the dems lack luster gains in the house can we then get to work at poching votes from them rather then this obsured self lothing exercise of helping Kos steal and then ofiscate our libertarian name?

[coodos to U]

That comment is sew insiteful.

[Pro Libertate]

Look. What's the point in supporting a political party that has no principles at all? It's all well and good to talk about strategic reasons why this issue that "we all secretly really believe in" isn't made part of the platform, but at what point does that become a reason to vote for someone else? Or, at least, to not trust the party in question?

The fundamental problem with the Democrats is the exact same one we see with the GOP. They'll do anything to get power, and they'll do anything to keep it. Heck if I can tell the difference between the two parties past the rhetoric, and even that isn't as distinct as it once was. Certainly, once in power, there is no effective difference any more. None. Even supposed hot buttons like abortion and gay marriage are just distractions that both parties use to obfuscate the real issues that neither ever address. The lot of the poor got exactly how much better when the Democrats were in power? All their words about helping the little guy is just so much crap to win votes, for they ignore that same guy when in power.

I object to the standard left-wing line about being "social libertarians", because it typically means that they promote freedom in a cafeteria manner--support this freedom and that one, while leaving the other fifty on the buffet line to rot. They simply do not understand that it is the very system of government that is flawed, not who happens to be running it. I'm no less oppressed when the oppression comes from the left than when it comes from the right. Nor do I care to give up liberty or property to fund their causes, which have little to do with my life.

Stop accepting that curing social ills is okay "by any means necessary". That's wrong, and it's stupid. If the GOP is offending you by what they are doing in power, well, that's your fault. The Democrats have done much, much more to expand government power than the GOP, mostly because they've been in power much longer. Jesus, this is frustrating! The Founders were right--government is the biggest single threat to us. Not corporations, religious groups, gun owners, rich people, etc. Government. If you're a Democrat and hate Bush and hate Congress, maybe you should think about our founding principles. Government is a necessary evil that must be strictly contained and limited. Yes, we can be taken advantage of by big business, etc., but how big would those businesses be if they couldn't use government to build barriers to entry, to get subsidies, to develop onerous regulations to limit competition, to get monopolies or oligopolies granted to them, to get laws that limit their liability, etc., etc.? And why can't people band together in civil society to resist overreaching corporations or other organizations?

It's about our freedoms. The worst oppression, the worst butchery, and the greatest contempt for the individual has always come and will always come from government. Period. If you want freedom, then voting for the two major parties, as configured or even if they, like the GOP once did, rhetorically support the cause of freedom, isn't the way to do it.

[Short 'n' sweet]

Give Congress to the Democrats while the Republicans have the White House.

CRIPPLE THE BEAST!!!

[zeiner]

The fundamental problem with the Democrats is the exact same one we see with the GOP. They'll do anything to get power, and they'll do anything to keep it.

I agree. Party loyalty is way too thick (at federal level anyway). Right now, the checks and balances that are in the Constitution no longer work. Of course, the judicial branch is still in good shape for the most part, but it seems that the GOP and the Dems are trying to politicize the courts as well.

I'm voting gridlock. I know that it will not solve all of the problems, but it is the only way I can vote and still sleep at night.

[Robert Goodman]

Gridlock, suuuure...as if the parties won't come to a compromise. As they have in NY, where for several decades it's been a Democrat's assembly and a Republican's senate. And currently (not atypically) a Republican governor and Democratic comptroller & att'y gen'l. Can't get more divided than that.

Care to name a few bad things on the nat'l scene that you think would not have happened had fedgov been similarly divided? With evidence for those items?

[Robert Goodman]

"What's the point in supporting a political party that has no principles at all?"

The point is not to support political parties, but to use them. Suckers are the supporters, savvy are the users.

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