all i wanted to do was point out the self-destruction button being pushed again. how can you be a viable force when your support is vaporous?

If I’m reading your comment correctly, you’re referring to the tendency of libertarians to nitpick candidates until they’re not viable? If I’ve misunderstood your comment, please let me know.

To respond to what I think your question is, I agree that often libertarians nitpick candidates to death on issues that most voters wouldn’t care about. But I don’t know think that this is something restricted to libertarians either…conservatives and liberals do the same to their own candidates, building mountains out of molehills and blasting them for perceived ideological failings, and yet they still manage to get their candidates elected. I suspect that this is partly because most politicians with the ability to get elected (good issues, skills for the office) tend to identify themselves more along the lines of where they perceive the most votes lie and currently they perceive libertarians to be a relatively minor part of that. Libertarians seem to get the scraps for candidates…second-tier guys who wouldn’t be able to make it with the two major parties for reasons that become quite obvious during the course of a campaign. I think it’s evident in how they handle themselves when a crisis pops up as well…McCain and Obama are very good at damage control in responding to unforseen events that arise. Romney and Clinton were/are so-so at it. Guiliani, Brownback, Paul, Tancredo were all pretty horrible. And I think the campaign results have reflected that…they were failings on the candidates’ part, not the supporters. So I don’t know that it’s so much a matter of libertarians needing to toss aside their innate distrust of government and their needling of candidates so much as libertarians needing to find better candidates to back. And for that I think they’ll probably have to engage and participate with the two major parties…basically not so much needing an ideological overhaul as needing to not isolate themselves from the mainstream (as people who strongly identify as libertarians seem, by nature, prone to do).

As for libertarians ever becoming a major political force, I’ve wondered about that for quite awhile and find it ever more unlikely that we would. I’m not saying that we couldn’t sell libertarianism to the public, but the goal behind becoming a “force” is to achieve power, and I think the fundamental basis for libertarianism tends to work against that. Libertarians distrust government, they support individual rights often to an extreme degree, so I’m increasingly of the opinion that if we as a movement want to stay true to our ideals we probably shouldn’t aspire to be in control or heavily throw ourselves behind any leader that we’re not absolutely certain suits our best interests.

Agreed, on all counts.

I would also say that the other difference between the Wright story and the newsletters (aside from the fact that the newsletters story had nothing to do with the reason why Ron Paul never had a chance) is that it shows that, in the end, Barack Obama knew how to handle a crisis, Ron Paul didn’t.

you know crawford, you’re probably not a bad person, all things considered. unfortunately your self-willed lack of insight is blatant on many levels.

Fair enough. My recent dig at you aside, I think you’re probably not a bad person either. You and I obviously disagree on quite a few issues but you do often bring up points that I think are pretty good and make me reexamine (if not change) my own. The tipping point for me on your opinions generally comes on the Ron Paul stuff. I realize that you are upset that your candidate didn’t win (which is understandable), I realize that you don’t consider the problems with the Paul campaign that we took serious issue with to be important (which is fine), but often when the discussion gets heated you go into troll mode and start trying to shut the discussion down and then it just overwhelms any valid points you might have made and the conversation degenerates into a pissing contest which doesn’t make anyone happy or convince anyone of anything (particularly since the campaign is now over). I won’t pretend to be innocent of doing this sort of thing myself at times, because I certainly have, but I do believe you take it too far and this works against you in forums where you might have a chance to get what you’re saying across and win people over. Obviously I’m not a psychoanalyst and I don’t have insight into your soul or know that much about your background, but that’s just my personal observation on it, it’s not being offered as a putdown towards you and I’ll leave it at that.

by the way, look at Obama and his media-frenzied association with Wright. that alone is testament to how wrong both you and [Doug] are about “The Huge Downfall” of Paul.

I’m going to caveat this by saying that I am not and do not plan to be an Obama supporter and that I will not be casting a ballot for him. That said, the difference between how Obama handled the Wright situation and how Paul handled the newsletter situation are textbook examples of the right and wrong way, respectively, to deal with a situation when running a campaign. Obama stuck up for Wright at first, then publicly cut himself off from Wright and disavowed his positions. Paul never did that with Lew Rockwell (or whoever wrote those newsletters)…in fact, Paul kept Rockwell as a key advisor. I should probably also point out that Rockwell has been a paid member of Ron Paul’s political operations in the past…to my knowledge Wright was never more than Obama’s pastor.

One of the key litmus tests for a candidate, to my mind, is how a candidate reacts when they realize they’ve made a mistake. Obama’s solution is to address the issue, to accept responsibility for his part, and (most importantly) to make changes to insure that the mistake is not repeated. Ron Paul’s solution was to pretend that it wasn’t a problem and change nothing. I consider the office of president to be, above all else, a position of management and I believe that contrasting those two situations demonstrates that Obama’s management skills were superior to Ron Paul’s. That’s why I honestly believe that, despite his extremely questionable economic platform, Barack Obama would still have been a better president than Ron Paul. There’s more to being qualified for the office of President than having the right issues.

maybe in 2050 your kids might find a “libertarian candidate” that you don’t choose to disavow at the blink of an eye and they could possibly get somewhere as a result.

Yes, I have a high standard for my elected leaders. But, since I also don’t believe that freedom derives from government (or whoever we put into government), I don’t consider my unwillingness to vote for the least-worst candidate or to support a candidate I view as unacceptable to be a problem.

and thank god that what Paul has to say is living far beyond what this inbred association of “thinkers” on this forum stands for, as in “something.”

Not seeing any evidence of that yet, my friend.

What impact will he have on the RNC platform ? None is my guess.

that’s the bottom line of why the word “libertarian” means nothing. by the example set here.

“it’s great that X candidate is has solid libertarian stances. but as soon as X candidate speaks on a topic from a libertarian stance that is uncomfortable for those unfamiliar with the libertarian philosophy, I will not only distance myself from that candidate, I will also demonize the candidate to the maximum extent possilbe within my own sphere of influence.”

this is the synopsis of the mataconis playbook, and it’s the reason you people wonder why never get anywhere.
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“Ever the Paulestinian troll…nice to know that you didn’t all decide to off yourselves once Race-Baiting Ronnie’s campaign fell apart. We would have missed you crazy “truthers” and whack-a-loons. :)”

you know crawford, you’re probably not a bad person, all things considered. unfortunately your self-willed lack of insight is blatant on many levels. by the way, look at Obama and his media-frenzied association with Wright. that alone is testament to how wrong both you and dung are about “The Huge Downfall” of Paul. look at not only what Wright said in the past, but also his mental breakdowns shown on every major media outlet now, and it makes so much of what Paul’s associations are look like absolute milquetoast. yet you’re choosing to ignore that. it’s pitiable.

maybe in 2050 your kids might find a “libertarian candidate” that you don’t choose to disavow at the blink of an eye and they could possibly get somewhere as a result.

Should a teenager be punished for producing nude pictures of himself? Under our current laws, the answer is “yes.” Other countries have child porn laws, but ours may be too extreme. Britain sets the bar at age 16 instead of 18.

Read the whole essay that Doug linked to – it’s pretty clear she was responding to him rather than deciding to make legalizing child porn to be the centerpiece of her campaign.

It’s unfortunate that a fellow libertarian felt the need to raise the issue when there was clearly no productive use in doing so.

A bit of background. She wrote a book many years ago which applies libertarian theory to a whole bunch of questions. When she announced her candidacy, someone supporting another Libertarian candidate went through the book looking for stuff to use against her, and came up with a passage on child pornography. There was a big brouhaha over this, and I believe one senior member of the Libertarian Party leadership was forced to resign after he denounced her position.

So people have been asking her questions about this, and she is answering their questions sincerely.

She hits the highlights here: sex with children is wrong since they can’t meaningfully consent. You can’t point to some age and say that it represents the line of meaningful consent. Nor can you set the line at 18, since for most of human history, people were starting families under the age of 18. she emphasizes that the libertarian position is to prosecute the act that victimizes someone – in this case the act of making child porn – and not the derivatives that don’t have a victim – the possession of images of the crime taking place.

Nor do I agree that she is being impolitic; people can detect hypocrisy a mile away. When a candidate explains there position, and treats their listeners as if they have a brain, they usually earn, at a minimum, a grudging respect.

Take Ron Paul, for example. I frequently see left wing commentary on his politics and writings that strongly and categorically disagree with him where the writers take great pains to express their grudging admiration for the consistency and honesty of the good Doctor’s positions.

Mary Ruwart has a microscopic chance of being president. It’s not like legalizing child pornography will somehow sink libertarianism where it would otherwise be successful. Libertarianism will be bashed for permitting drug use, polygamy, and gay marriage. We will be pilloried for supporting the elimination of the FDA (one of Dr. Ruwart’s pet projects BTW), the elimination of the Dept of Agriculture, ending federal involvement in public schools, repeal of Title IX, abolition of the FCC, etc.

Anyone of these positions is enough to paint Libertarianism as a loony philosophy.

In the end, this doesn’t bother me. I think you are indulging in a bit of making a mountain out of a molehill, Doug.

It’s about picking your battles, oil. Libertarianism is so far out of the mainstream right now that the last thing we need is to fight battles where the odds are that stacked against us.

That pretty much nails it…the biggest downfall of so many libertarian candidates seems to be their inability not to pick unnecessary fights in their campaign.

oh and by the way, personally i dont give a shit about Ruwart, Barr or whoever else is trying to get the LP nom. when doug popped up yet again with the obligatory denigration of someone who’s making a name for themselves while being associated with “libertarian philosophy,” the post was so clinically obvious and predictable that anyone here should look at that and doug for what it is.

Ever the Paulestinian troll…nice to know that you didn’t all decide to off yourselves once Race-Baiting Ronnie’s campaign fell apart. We would have missed you crazy “truthers” and whack-a-loons. :)