Where are the Libertarians?
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 2, 2025 07:10
VIEWED: 17715
PAGE 5 of 10
It's all good as long as 007 does the right thing.
Chrisisa double-D'oh
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I vote libertarian, when taxes are 2% of the family budget instead of 50%, I'll consider the other 2 parties again.
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Fletch,
Again we're closer than usual to agreement. How unlikely. I want to clarify something.
The situation in the GOP right now is very peculiar. The Bush/neocon set has one (1) voter group which votes for them at the polls. This is the christian right. The thing to do which is counter intuitive, is to outbid them for the christian right. A new republican agenda would have to do that. But there's more peculiar about this voting block. They are really isolationists. They're so isolationist that they would like to set up their own rules and have no interference even from the state and local govts. There is undoubtedly a compromise which can be reached where we stop affecting their enclaves, and they stop effecting our federal govt. In essence, they would become like indian reservations.
But then it would have to revert to the values the rest of us hold, fiscal discipline, limited govt. etc. The thing is that Bush is to some extent an abberration. Neocons are not really republican at all, they're hald of the former social democrats, the other half are still democrats. But close examination of both our primaries and of the senate reveals that GOP resistance to Bush is far greater than Democratic resistance to Clinton. As I recall only Russ Feingold consistantly opposed the Clinton Admin.
But I'm not saying it's going to be easy. I will guarantee you it is easier than throwing the hawks out of the democratic party. In the primaries, the hawks take 70%-90% consistantly of the dem ticker, and only 50% of the republican, and that is just the christian right, which is in its heart much more of an isolationist, they don't vote for neocon hawks for the war, they do it for the pro-religion. I think it's doable to kick the hawks out of the GOP more or less permanently. I think it's much more difficult to do so in the Democratic party, but I fully support anyone who wants to try.
Finally, I think these things DO happen in isolation. Bush and co have very few ties to other republicans, and tensions are very high. The fuzzier part is that there are SOME republicans who WILL work with Bush but AREN'T particularly neocon themselves, or wouldn't be if Bush disappeared. John McCain, Colin Powell, Even Condi Rice would revert to being a normal Republican if the mainstay neocons were axed. Where I think the neocons are entrenched is not in the GOP proper, but in the auxilliary complex, like the media talk shows and whatnot. Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, etc. are going to follow the neocons off the end of the Earth. By contrast, I DO think that Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and the like would follow the GOP back into the mainstream if it recovered.
Actually.
Let me take a moment to lay all the cards on the table.
We have three options. We must take one of those three options, because the option of total defeatest apathy is not an option.
Option 1. We form a third party and break in.
Option 2. We resurrect the democratic party.
Option 3. We resurrect the republican party.
Considering option 1, I think most of us have discarded this, it take 4 times as much success to succeed, minimum, on an absolute scale.
Option 2, I say "How?" I'm all for the idea of Russ Feingold for president, but getting the Democratic party to nominate him is like getting the GOP to nominate Lincoln Chafee. It's totally comparable, because neither one can be counted for to vote with their own party more than half the time. Realistically, the democratic voters are far more likely to vote for a hawk in the primary and in the general election because this is how it was in '04, '00, '96, '92 and so on back to 1824 with very few exceptions. It's a fairly quixotic bid.
Option 3, has the strong advantage that there's already a large disaffected population within the party willing to move towards change, and a long standing history of not voting for hawks. Republicans historically not only have many times the number of peaceful presidents on their resume, but also, even in the recent election primaries, w
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It's painful for me to swallow, but you do make a lot of sense. The trouble is, I have the hardest time trusting anyone who can succeed through a major party primary process. I haven't been there, so I can't say you're wrong, but my impression is that it takes so many compromises and entangling alliances that no one can come to power without baggage that's sure to flatten any kind of reformist ideology.
I'm reminded of Reagan. For all his cashing in on distrust of big government, he did very little to dismantle it. Maybe his intentions were good, but nothing budged.
I'll think about this more. Your argument gives me some slim hope. It's been my position for sometime that the only effective opposition to Bush's policies will be from within the republican party. Hmmmm
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Sgt X.
Politics is the art of compromise.
That said, it's a matter of who you choose to compromise with that matters.
Reagan was a stooge, a lackey. He was hand picked by the neocons as their first pet election project, and then then fed to the christian right as someone who would put God back in the whitehouse. Reagan himself did a lot of compromising to become that.
That gave him the numbers to win, then he walked in an took the nomination flat out, and there was a huge fight. The GOP didn't like an outsider winning, esp. one who was backed by two groups they didn't traditionally represent, one trosky-socialist, and the other religious-fanatic.
So a huge fight ensued, and the result was a compromise. This compromise worked out at the '80 GOP convention would make George H. W. Bush, former CIA chief, vice president (he would not have been Reagan or his supporter's pick by any means) and that Reagan once in office would appoint a number of traditional republicans into govt. Reagan also appointed a good number of neocons. It's was kind of a mix.
If Reagan hadn't made the first compromise in order to get the votes, he could have been a lot better. If he hadn't made the second compromise with the party, he would have been a lot worse. The result was acceptable, but not perfect.
A new group would have to make similar compromises. First, they would need to assemble into a well distribute group of 10 million or so. Once they did this, advertising would be more or less unnecessary until the general election. They would walk in an take the title by sheer numbers. This group would already have compromised on a platform. This platform would be not carved in stone by more a list of sort of things we promise to try to achieve, and if we fail, well then you probably won't vote for us in the future, so we better try.
The once having won the title, another compromise would have to be worked out so that the party would consent to give you its full backing. Certain candidates like McGovern in '72 seem to have run without a full party backing, meaning the backers of the party weren't willing to throw in the necessary support, and so the campaign kind of flopped. There are one or more trade offs that would have to be made here, but that's a hell of a lot better than just letting evil reign. But most importantly, I have an idea to offset too much loss from this final compromise, you seek out the agreement you need ahead of time. You look for what you would need to have and who you would need to work with in order to get that final support. So you say okay, well my platform helps stem cell companies and not oil companies, so it needs something else, what can I do for major manufacturing sector or information tech. companies. etc. And you collect a group of people already in the base, without catering to the ones you don't want to cater to. Then you do the same with the old guard of the party. There are a lot of reasonable men there who would welcome the chance to work with just about anything non-neocon just as long as it was remotely more traditional. If you did all this footwork in advance, when you got into the party convention and big oil and neocons objected, you could more or less shout them down.
I do think the primary is their weakest link. It will take a smaller opposition to defeat them there then in either the general election or a power struggle in some major multinational body like the UN or God knows what that they plan to invent.
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Dutch- It sounds as if you support warrantless searches. Is that your intention?
Presidents have long claimed the authority to order warrantless searches for intelligence purposes as long as national security is at stake. That includes Nixon and Reagan (Executive Order 12333) as well as Clinton (Executive Order 12949). The distinction is that crime-fighting requires a warrant and probable cause while intelligence-gathering does not. However, after the abuse of warrantless searches by Nixon (against anti-war groups who were exercising their First Ammendment rights and who did not pose a security threat to the USA) Congress placed the authority w/in FISA. BTW- technically, the surveillance authorization from FISA is not called a "warrant" but a "surveillance order", so searches and wiretaps conducted under FISA are indeed "warrantless". However, they are conducted under Judicial review.
What you quoted was many opinions from advocates of warrantless surveillance. These opinions have not (or probably will not) w/stand Judicial or Congressional scrutiny. The reason is that- knowing that obtaining a FISA surveillance order may take up to 72 hours- there is a loophole that offers the ability to obtain a surveillance order after the fact. Thus, there is no possible reason to evade judicial oversight for warrantless searches.
www.slate.com/id/2070287 www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp
And my point remains- where are the Libertarians? The ACLU and leftist organizations have been dogging this issue whether it involved Nixon, Reagan, Clinton or Bush. (Look at the bylines of the varius articles.) Nobody- certainly not me- is claiming Clinton was a great President.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Dreamtrove- I think you've identified the primary as the "weak link" and the point at which to aim. However, the Republican Party has been so relentlessly on -message (of the neocon sort) that that I find it hard to believe that there really are enough disaffected Republican politicians OR voters to turn the party around. If you break out the Bush-approval poll numbers by self-identified Republicans, Independents and Democrats, Bush still maintains a very large approval within the Republican party, and the inverse among Democrats and Independents. You'd be plowing some pretty stony ground.
In addition, the Democratic Party is more openly suffering a split, with Hillary/ Biden/ Feinstein on one side and Dean/Feingold/Edwards on the other. I think that split could be more effectively exploited.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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If I may dig up a quote from WAAAAAAY back (sorry haven't been to this thread in a while)
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Do you suppose there could ever be some sort of uniting on common issues between lefties and Libertarians and conservatives?
There should be. Libertarians were Conservatives that basically split off and adopted some 'leftist' Liberal ideals (such as small government).
Ergo for the two largely opposing views of Liberals and Conservatives Libertarians are the mixing point... Like one of those colour graphs.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
Remember, the ice caps aren't melting, the water is being liberated.
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I found this website for centrist Republicans
www.mypartytoo.com
Here is the flavor of their discussion board:
Quote:Thought you guys would be interested.
Stupid Budget Decisions
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GardenLady | 12/13/2005 11:21:23 AM
Stevens is actually fairly fiscally conservative when you ignore the elephant of the Alaska pork. Another example of the Party's ethical challenges.
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rational | 12/12/2005 1:42:23 PM
The beauty of this site and the main street coalition's is that we do not have to agree with everyone. That is what makes us moderates. The ability to debate, change minds--including our own-- and often to agree to disagree without animosity or shunning.
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fringeright | 11/28/2005 8:43:22 PM
Ted Stevens is a member of the Main Street Coalition. A coalition that this website argues is a "strategic Partner." Odd the main opponent to the bridge to nowhere appears to be one of those evil far right republicans, Tom Coburn. I agree Ted Stevens should be ashamed, of the bridge to nowhwere and of his affiliation with teh Main street Coalition.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:Not a big supporter of Clinton here- I know he did some skanky stuff- but this is one thing I never heard of. First of all, it would be impossible to tap "millions" of calls because you would need "millions" of listeners, and at least thousands of translators. Secondly, I tried looking this up, and while I found a lot of hue and cry about what Clinton PROPOSED to do
Why is it a heinous crime when Bush taps thousands of international calls and emails after 9/11 happened in order to try to prevent another one but it's completely ignored that Clinton tapped millions of international AND DOMESTIC calls and emails after the first trade center bombing?Quote:http://hnn.us/articles/366.html
For two decades, lingering popular wariness forestalled any expansion of wiretapping powers. But after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, President Clinton, warning of international terrorism, proposed measures similar to those George Bush seeks today. Civil libertarians in Congress refused to pass them, but Clinton redoubled his efforts after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and again after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing. Yet Congress held firm, giving Clinton none of the new wiretapping powers he sought. What the bombings of 1993, 1995, and 1996 failed to achieve, the atrocities of 2001 may bring to fruition.
www.cqpress.com/context/articles/cqr19950721.html and some of what he HAD doneQuote:www.monitor.net/monitor/10-30-95/fisa.html I haven't found any- and mean zip, nada, nic- about this alleged massive wiretapping program. So, do you have a link to info about this?
Granting new powers to the FISA court was accomplished quietly and treated as a non-event in the national media. The lack of reporting was somehow fitting, though, following as it did the silent debate last year when Congress rubberstamped the annual Intelligence Authorization Act
BTW, if you check out these links, you'll find the same people (ACLU, Molly Ivens, etc) complaining about loss of freedom under Clinton as under Bush. So, I don't know where the Libertarians have been but at least the Liberals are consistent.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
You mean poof like this??
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
Quote:
FLASHBACK: CLINTON, CARTER SEARCH 'N SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT COURT ORDER
Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval
Clinton, February 9, 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order"
WASH POST, July 15, 1994, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches": Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also -- in the delicate words of a Justice Department official -- to "places where you wouldn't find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen... would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order."
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."
Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames's office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.
Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for "foreign intelligence purposes."
Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities.
"The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified..."
Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: "Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."
As you were saying??
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