Picking Up in the Middle of the Argument...

[DanaC]

As an additional thought on the matter, I find it interesting that Russia, has arguably tended towards strongman government and a lack of civic freedoms regardless of which governmental system is in place. Absolute Tzarist power, revolution which led to leaders like Stalin and now in the days of democracy we have Putin.

[wolf]

The rich people in Telluride probably self identify as liberals. Two of the better known (sometime) residents of are Oliver Stone and Tom Cruise. The real distinction is socio-economic class in your example rather than political affiliation.

They probably just assumed that your friend didn't speak English and said what they thought rather than what they would like people to hear them say.

[DanaC]

The real distinction is socio-economic class in your example rather than political affiliation.

That's a good point.

Well, I too, have to agree that socio-economics came into it, as well. He was wearing a bright red t-shirt from the Zuni pueblo which was imprinted with the words "The Zuni Pueblo - Runner for the Zuni Prevention of diabetes fund 2005." On the back was a circle showing the animal totem and name of each of the Zuni clans (my friend is a member of the badger clan and he was pretty proud that the badgers won the race that year). But the T-shirt was covered up by his coat. I suggested that he take the coat off and just walk down the street with his T-shirt and see if he'd get a different reaction. He said he probably would. but that he'd had enough social experiments for one day.

[Aliantha]

UG claims to be a libertarian

[Clodfobble]

Trust me, he ain't one. Radar is our truest die-hard libertarian, Undertoad used to be one and has moved on, and I, Griff, and at least a few others are generally libertarian in principle, but not wholeheartedly devoted to the party.

[lookout123]

the libertarian party, like all other parties is fucked to the core, because in order to get people to ally themselves into a cohesive unit big enough to wield real power the individual libertarians have to make compromises on what they believe a libertarian to be... so they can create a party of libertarians.

i'm a conservatarian. you can join my party today if you want. send me money and i promise that i'll be the best...

If I send you money, will you buy me a congressman? Oh, wait! Never mind.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

the libertarian party, like all other parties is fucked to the core, because in order to get people to ally themselves into a cohesive unit big enough to wield real power the individual libertarians have to make compromises on what they believe a libertarian to be...

Compromising is a prerequisite for many party politics. In a political pool where only two parties completely dominate everything and where gerrymandering manipulated politics to the advantage of extremists of those two parties, then no third party has a hope in hell.

Remember why Ross Perot so scared every communist from Democrat and Republican parties. Perot got as much as 20% of the vote. Those who work for a party rather than for America cannot afford such power in a third party. They would have to negotiate with that third party that got votes only because Amerians rejected self serving Democrats and Republicans. Fear and loathing would occur on a campaign trail where America is more important that the party. Unfortunately for any third party, the game is rigged. Gerrymangering is simply one tool.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

snip~ In a political pool where only two parties completely dominate everything and where gerrymandering manipulated politics to the advantage of extremists of those two parties, then no third party has a hope in hell. ~snip

UNLESS, the voters want change badly enough to actually get involved in the process of selecting candidates and watching their performance in office.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

. . . and I, Griff, and at least a few others are generally libertarian in principle, but not wholeheartedly devoted to the party.

Well, hell, Fobble, now how does that not describe me? This is exactly the approach I take. My other admixture is quite blatantly neocon, which is not of itself exclusive of libertarianism. Before you blow any stacks, read the major neocon essays and see what I mean.

Where I differ from Radar is that I don't think libertarianism should be a hothouse flower, only able to live in the benign environs of the United States. It should instead be able to take on, overwhelm, and render extinct any totalitarian philosophy on the face of the earth.

[yesman065]

I'm an Indeconseverable

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I've heard that the winner-take-all Electoral College system is what makes a two-party, rather than multiple-party, system. This does not in itself explain how this causes the Legislative Branch to be almost exclusively two party, as the Electoral College chooses the President only. We can look for different mechanisms in Congress.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Given enough democracy Capitalism will cease to exist.

And there you have something the Federalist founding fathers were wise enough to be very concerned about.

Though even if brought to ruin through democracy's besetting sin, the possibility that the electorate votes itself the treasury, capitalism can still rebound even from getting the currency scrambled in this manner, as capitalism, and we must face it, is what humans will naturally do with each other, absent state meddling. On the other side of the coin, more than one mechanism for enforcing ethical behavior in economic transaction seems more than merely a good idea, but a positive necessity. Ringer's Paradox likely applies here.

The neo-co[n] agenda is far too enamored of state exercised force to include libertarians.

Not of the too narrow in scope variety of big-L Libertarian, no -- by which I mean the fanatical purists, who run no risk of ever acceding to public office nor of ever actually putting libertarianism into practice -- the self-defeaters! This is a bad habit of third parties. What I see the neocon agenda (I'm using the term for convenience, not minute accuracy of characterization) doing is moving global politics in a more libertarian direction, democracies being generally understood to be more libertarian than the autocracies they should supplant. I'm begging for the moment the question of how successful they've been at this as of yet; it seems suitable to adopt a protracted-conflict habit of mind.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

What I see the neocon agenda (I'm using the term for convenience, not minute accuracy of characterization) doing is moving global politics in a more libertarian direction, democracies being generally understood to be more libertarian than the autocracies they should supplant.

I get the argument. What I don't understand is the willingness to embrace the high risk of catostrophic failure leading to Islamic totalitarianism in a enterprise with such a low chance for success. We could have had an incremental movement to liberalism by minding our own business and leading by example, instead we chose to use the tools of totalitarians.