Is this the post to which you refer ?

http://tinyurl.com/5ac8sn

I don’t know about you, but I found it genuinely puzzling that a supposed libertarian would endorse the King of Pork, and I wasn’t the only one.

Perhaps you could explain it.

When was the last time you made an actual substantive comment on this blog that didn’t involve an attack on me personally ?

….

(crickets chriping, frogs croaking)

Yea, I thought so.

Ron Paul ? You’re still talking about Ron Paul ?

Geez dude, he’s so like last year at this point.

Pick up a newspaper and get with the program.

And one other thing to think about, both Jason and I are attacking the Republican ticket, not supporting it.

Think about that for a few years and get back to me when you’ve actually learned something

First: this blog barely has any circulation. at all. once in a great while, you’ll get this neat little *PINGBACK* from BelowTheBeltway.. yay? my manna from Heaven arrived? lulz.

Second: then you have this head blogger on Ron Paul named Dung Mataconis. Dung is basically obsessed with Ron Paul’s “downfall.” check out everything he’s written since Jan 07. bascially Dung is a “lawyer” with such a flimsy grasp on even the most playful sense of nuance, that it makes you wonder whether maybe he’s more of a paperwork lawyer, or even, not more of a slovenly welfare check collector, by virtue of the entire collection of work he’s ever produced here amounts to. try to call Dung on this? no. he’ll say he has no idea what you’re talking about. it really doesn’t matter anyway; Dung’s been on vacation here at the blog most of the summer and no one has missed it.

Third: This blog is definitely organization-centric. if the Cato Institute doesn’t sanction an action, expect Dung to be on the case. this particular aspect leads to ultra-weirdly institutional lashes against pretty unknown sources like Rockwell. see a few articles down for an example. some of these odd crusades seem to propel unknown sources like rockwell into some “explosive” microchosm of political minutia.

Fourth: I wholeheartedly agree with you about this blog. by its history that i have only seen in 2 years, it’s one of the most flimsy charades for institutional propagation, not for original thought.

that said, i see true thought value many of its contributors; namely, the ones who post here as if they were humans who take a philosophy and pontificate with the foundation of only themselves and the interaction with the philosophy, not as a sounding board for an institution. i really dont blame you at all for abondoning this board, most people already have. good luck to you.

I agreed with you up until the point where you mentioned Fred Thompson.

On economics at least he was good, but he was a lackluster and obviously reluctant campaigner who, if he’d managed to win the nomination by some miracle would have gotten creamed no matter who the Dems nominated.

Back in May of `07 some thought he was the next Ronald Reagan. He turned out to be the next Harold Stassen.

But you see, therein lies the crux of the matter. We look at this from opposite sides. My feeling is that if we could all pull together on the repub side in the primary stage, we might actually make some headway. There just aren’t enough people that are politically savvy to really support a third party as far as I can see. As I have said, if a third party can gain enough traction to really challenge the dems/repubs, then I’ll look at it again. I just think that neither prominent party has any fear of being overtaken by a third, though. To me, from the get go, Ron Paul looked like a loser. He had some great ideas, but also some really “out there” ideas – and because of those, no matter what I or anyone else thought, his candidacy could never take hold. If enough of the Ron Paul contingent had backed Fred, we might not be where we are now. So, I guess, as I said, we just have to agree to disagree more or less agreeably, LOL.

Maybe by voting third party we will spur the republicans to move back to “Goldwater” type smaller gov’t ideals or if they don’t, promote a third party in their place, since they will have effectively become a wing of the democratic party. Really I can’t tell much difference between them. I especially can’t tell much difference between Obama and McCain other than their age and skin color and those aren’t things that matter to me when I vote.

If I hadn’t already given Brad credit as “Quote of the Day” on my personal blog, that paragraph would have gotten it for you.

The ironic thing about this entire election to me is that John McCain holds the Senate seat once held by Barry Goldwater and, well….

John McCain, you’re no Barry Goldwater.

I will be happy to admit that I voted for Perot. The republicans thought they could abandon the libertarians and they lost. As Brad said, that helped bring on the “Contract with America” and brought back into power the republicans for a short period of time. It would have been a lot longer if they actually stayed true to what they were saying in the “Contract”. Instead once in power they pretty much did the opposite. The republicans, I believe, would still be in power if they had actually given us smaller gov’t, instead of the bloated, war-mongering gov’t that we received. And what do the republicans give us now but McCain, while he talks smaller gov’t every once in a while he almost always votes for much bigger gov’t. Heck he makes Bush look like a lighweight when it comes to his terrible foreign policy stances.

I also liked Thompson, or at least some of his views. Next to Paul he was by far the republicans best choice. The problem was he never had his heart in it.

For those people like yourself kay, that choose to stay in the Republican party and work from within for smaller gov’t, you need to do a much better job of getting us candidates that we can vote for. As for Paul, he certainly had chance if all the people like you who said he didn’t have a chance actually backed him. To many people in the reublican party are to scared to back anyone that actually stands up for their ideals, if it doesn’t mesh with the people in power.

As for my vote for Perot giving us Clinton, that is certainly not the case as the republicans do not own my vote. If I didn’t vote for Perot I may very well have voted for someone other than the republican nominee, including possibly Clinton, as the republicans had already veered well off course. Still it wouldn’t have mattered as my state went republican anyway. Actually we may have ended up with the best deal between Clinton and the republican as I doubt the republicans would have ever veered to the smaller gov’t thinking without Perot and Clinton. If a republican became President then we may have been where we are today eight years sooner. From an economic standpoint the Clinton years really were actually pretty good.

Maybe by voting third party we will spur the republicans to move back to “Goldwater” type smaller gov’t ideals or if they don’t, promote a third party in their place, since they will have effectively become a wing of the democratic party. Really I can’t tell much difference between them. I especially can’t tell much difference between Obama and McCain other than their age and skin color and those aren’t things that matter to me when I vote.

Your last paragraph sums up exactly how I feel.

Unlike you, I live in a state where enough support for Barr could throw Virginia’s 13 Electoral Votes to Obama and decide the election.

I still plan on voting for Barr (or staying home or leaving the Presidential ballot blank) and won’t feel the least bit of regret for it.

This was followed in 1994 by the Republican Party really coming in on a “clean the house” platform. They were offering a complete reform, welfare reform, the “Contract With America”, and were even pushing a balanced budget amendment. Did the Republicans from 2000 to 2008 offer us anything like that? Or did they offer us Medicare Part D and Leave No Child Behind?

You can claim that if I vote for Barr (or stay home), my vote will be a vote for Obama. But at the very least, it’s not true in my case. I live in California, and McCain is not going to have a shot in California. So my vote for a third party is less “wasted” than it would be in a battleground state, and actually ends up being counted amongst those that might give the Republicans a message other than “keep doing what you’re doing, go along to get along”.

The Republican party doesn’t believe they need to satisfy the libertarian wing of their coalition. They’re taking us for granted, and ignoring us because they know we don’t want Obama to be elected. If they don’t feel they need to satisfy us, why should I feel sad if I make them feel the consequences of that belief?

There have been several conservative writers and bloggers to express concern with Palin. Have you given them a hard time as well?

You show me one thing I posted that was false. Please. I did my own research for this post. I wrote it within twenty minutes of getting off work (at an insurance company).

I take a very skeptical view of politics. I beat up on Huckabee during the primary after hearing people say he was the second coming of Reagan. They were wrong and I posted my take about him here.

If you want to give me something contrary to what I posted, that’s fine, but to dismiss it out of hand is absurd.