You know what, fuck it. Unless things change, this country deserves the garbage it votes for.

“One of Friedman’s most disastrous deeds was the important role he proudly played, during World War II in the Treasury Department, in foisting upon the suffering American public the system of the withholding tax.”

Is that enough? Okay you want more:

“Yet, Milton Friedman is a radical advocate of cutting all current ties, however weak, with gold, and going onto a total and absolute fiat dollar standard, with all control vested in the Federal Reserve System.* Of course, Friedman would then advise the Fed to use that absolute power wisely, but no libertarian worth the name can have anything but contempt for the very idea of vesting coercive power in any group and then hoping that such group will not use its power to the utmost.”

And here he sums up Friedman nicely:

“And wherever we turn, we find Milton Friedman, proposing not measures on behalf of liberty, not programs to whittle away the Leviathan State, but measures to make the power of that State more efficient, and hence, at bottom, more terrible.”

So he was just a statist that wanted to make the state more efficient. Friedman was not a libertarian.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/118494.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html

I’m sorry guys, that would be like calling Milton Friedman a Libertarian.

Blardy, he was one so what was your point?

What a sham, just another establishment cheerleader. Another wolf wearing sheep clothing.

Your entire argument seems to boil down to this one fact:

People (who may or may not have a real understanding of what libertarianism actually is) are calling Rudy Giuliani a libertarian, therefore he’s a libertarian.

Rather than arguing against you, I’ve decided to adopt your logic.

Henceforth, I would like to be referred to as “incredibly wealthy”

In an interview with CNN political reporter Dana Bush, Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said that he still supports public funding for abortions for poor women:
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani …

”There is a genuineness to Giuliani that is missing in every other candidate except for perhaps McCain,” said Bob Chaffee of Portsmouth.

Chaffee said he already had a good opinion of Giuliani from his conduct on Sept. 11, 2001, and afterward. He said seeing Giuliani live cemented that.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is ”not libertarian enough for me,” Chaffee said. ”Giuliani brings a combination of positions that appeal to moderate Republicans, independents, moderate Democrats, where Romney is a little too focused on appealing to the conservative wing of the Republican Party.”

Libertarian votes, moreso than any other votes, are not *delivered* they are earned. Those votes may go to Ron Paul or the Libertarian Party nominee, whosoever has shown themselves to be the most committed to increasing personal freedom.

On Steve Kubby, I am aware of his parole status and I hope he uses my recent $20 contribution to educate my fellow Americans on why the marijuana prohibition issue is important. I am proud of my contribution to the Steve Kubby campaign and I have nothing by admiration for Mr. Knapp’s begging for $10 contributions if it keeps one person from being arrested for marijuana possession.
http://www.kubby2008.com/

On George Phillies, I have heard the critiques you mention before and I believe he will use my recent $20 contribution to educate my fellow Americans on why Liberarian ideals are deserving of their support.
http://phillies2008.org/

Ron Paul, more than ever, deserves my recent $20 contribution as well as my father’s $4 contribution.

Every contribution I have made has been made to a candidate whose committment to the idea of personal freedom is unmistakeable and who has shown through their words and actions that he supports less government.

I would welcome a candidate with celebrity power but candidates for President choose themselves. The current list of Presidential candidates with a bona fide committment to personal freedoms beyond seat belt laws, the now obligatory and perfunctory Republican statement that he “supports the second amendment” and a belief in supply side economics doesn’t include Rudy Giuliani. (Is there even a reference that Rudy Giuliani opposes seat belt laws Mr. Dondero?)

Mr. Dondero, go ahead and continue working on Mr. Giuliani. He may yet undergo a Bob Barr type turnaround in time for the 2012 election cycle as a result of your effort. For now though Rudy Giuliani’s support of personal freedom and limited government is far too tepid to inspire my support.

Mr. Dondero, I know (as should you) plenty of average Joe “blue collar” reasons why a candidate should support an end to the war on drugs. Let me encourage you to get ahold of one of Rudy Giuliani’s people so you can report back to the world what his current beliefs are on the topic of drug prohibition (and suggest that he get that belief put on his web site in black and white).

Keep on in your efforts to reduce government oppression Mr. Dondero, there is plenty of it ongoing that needs to be rebuffed so that blue collar Americans as well as Ivory Tower Libertarians can keep our hard earned money instead of having tax money go to drug war incarceration camps and so that people’s lives aren’t disrupted by the ATF because it needs one more arrest of a peaceable American on the say-so of a “confidential informant” to make their quarterly arrest stats so that the Bureau can claim a customary budget increase next year justified by their “productivity”.

Are you even reading what you’re posting?

Republicans won’t pay attention to Libertarians until they have a concrete reason to. Thus, we should vote for Giuliani who doesn’t care about us, instead of voting Libertarian to make the Republicans start paying attention to us?

Seriously. If your point is that Republicans don’t take Libertarians seriously, that’s an argument that we SHOULD vote for Libertarians, not vote for an authoritarian Republican like Rudy who isn’t even close to being a libertarian.

That’s the whole damn point. This is sooooo frustrating. You almost got it. But you missed it at the end.

YES, what we have to offer Giuliani and other Presidential candidates is OUR VOTES.

But that’s the whole point. OUR VOTES AREN’T WORTH SHIT!!!

The Cato Institute can come out with all the policy studies they want trying to prove that — ahem, ahem — “Fully 14% of the American Electorate could be categorized as fiscally conservative/socially tolerant, so they are essentially libertarian.” Nobody buys that. I’d love to buy into that. But even I’m skeptical.

What political professionals do buy into is hard statistics.

And the cold hard fact is that the Libertarian Presidential Vote for 2004 was a grand total of:

390,000

I may be wrong here, but that’s about .25% of the entire American electorate.

Do you honestly think that Giuliani or any other Presidential candidate should concern themselves with jumping through hoops to reach .25% of the American electorate?

Okay, maybe it’s worth their time to make a phone call or two to the Libertarian Party National Chairman, or to a Libertarian Radio Talk Show Host or two. But to attend an LP Convention? To spend precious campaign funds on a mass mailer to all the 20,000 Libertarian Party members in the Nation asking them for their support?

Gimmee a break.

Essentially, because of jerkoff Presidential candidates like Badnarik and Browne, we have screamed to all the Political Professionals in the country; WE CAN’T DELIEVER ANY VOTES SO YOU SHOULD JUST IGNORE US.

Now, if we were in the Ed Clark range, it might be different. Clark got about 1 million votes in 1980, 1.1% of the entire American Electorate at the time. That’s not something to be ignored.

But we’ve reached that level a grand total of ONE TIME!!

Unfortunately, nobody remembers Clark. When people think of the Libertarian Party today, they think of Harry Browne and that “Badnarik fellow.” And this is inevitably followed by the remark, “they didn’t do so well now did they?”

Until the Libertarian Party gets serious and runs a Celebrity candidate or a well-known Politician like Wayne Root, Doug Stanhope or even Bob Barr, Nobody is going to care about reaching out to get the Libertarian vote.