We've got our own neos now...

[MaC]

I have to agree with David S over Dibs on this one.  At what point do we have to conform to fit into the mold of a standard politician?

What I fear is if we conform, just to get elected then we head down the road of becoming a corporate party.  Sure, we'll get elected but in time we may become the very thing we hate.

What we need to work on is the pitch.  Anyone who doesn't know how to sell the idea of libetarianism can pick up  some pointers on the Oct. 23rd Harry Browne radio show.

And, if you have the social left, and fiscal right without foreign policy based on peace and free trade, then it's not real libertarianism.  The ideology may be libertarian leaning, but not truly it if you think you can force other countries to do what you want, or support one side over another in a war.

[MaC]

at this point our party's really just an interest group, but it's big enough to have some amount of persuasion.  Ya gotta remember, revolutions* don't happen over night.  It's a matter of persuading the general populace that liberty it's always the better choice to government.  The problem, I fear is that the way things are headed, the LP is not progressing fast enough, and won't fully blossom as a major force before the United States become prison states.

*I say revolution, I mean political and not violent.

[MaC]

at this point our party's really just an interest group, but it's big enough to have some amount of persuasion.  Ya gotta remember, revolutions* don't happen over night.  It's a matter of persuading the general populace that liberty it's always the better choice to government.  The problem, I fear is that the way things are headed, the LP is not progressing fast enough, and won't fully blossom as a major force before the United States become prison states.

*I say revolution, I mean political and not violent.

The general populace is not anarcho-capitalist. Radical libertarianism will never be mainstream.

Libertarianism is pretty useless in moderation.  To say that you should apply it moderately pretty much means giving up your principles.

Let's give an example, some one like you could relate with:  Ronald Reagan, probably one of your favorite presidents A18.  I think probably the best thing he did in office was to lower the income tax rate dramaticly (I'm not 100% on this but I think it was lowered to 32%).  That 32% is a drastic reduction, and I'm not arguing that it was a bad thing.  But it only took until George H.W. Bush to raise the tax rate.

Now as for your plan, the 8.4% flat tax, it sounds way better than what we have now.  But at one point there will be a liberal congress, or a liberal president, or maybe just someone in government who wants to get out of the deficit who will raise that 8.4%.  How far will it go? 15% flat? 25% flat? 39% flat?

My main point is moderate libertarian proposals will only go so far before they fizzle out, and big government slams right back down.  The only good tax policy is to repeal the 16th Amendment.  If government had no income tax, it would be incredibly difficult for them to go back to one.  This is the main thing I disagree with John Dibble about.  I may be more radical (I prefer "absolutist"), but it's the only good way to change things for the better and keep them good.

[MaC]

Well, the thing about Reagan was that he was in a position where he actually had the power to make radical changes. Don't think I wouldn't try to implement libertarian policies if I were in his position. But the LP isn't anywhere near that level - we don't have the kind of large scale political power that the two major parties do, and if we refuse to make compromises with outside groups things won't change at all. Politics is the art of the possible - we aren't in the position where radical change could be affected, but we are in a position where we could get others to compromise with us and thusly move towards our goals, if only incrementally. Principles are important, but implementing them is pretty much impossible without power.

I understand that we'd need to compromise, but why should we be the ones that fold rather than the Demopublicans compromising to our ideals?  I mean, if what libertarians believe in is what the founding fathers meant for this country to be (mind you in a modern context), then the other parties are the ones doing wrong and we're the ones who need to set it right.  They should be the ones that give up their big government positions to come around to what our party stands for.  That's why Ron Paul is our greatest asset politically, because the liberty caucus understands certain libertarian philosophy such as going back on the gold standard.  Hopefully with enough persuasion, both Democrats and Republican parties can seek liberty, and end the blatant authoritarianism that's been going on for the past 90 or so years.  I believe in this situation, our party could then prove Phillip wrong, and elect a good deal of libertarians to higher office.  At this point, moderate libertarians would be the norm and capital L's, the most principaled of us could get elected, based on that society in general doesn't see us as extreme.

[MaC]

what I mean is, they're mostly wrong on a great deal of things and they need to be enlightened.

[MaC]

we do need to increase numbers, you're right about this.  My party also need to be far better in uniting.  Lot of the Badnarik campaign was followed by libertarians beating themselves up over doing poorly and not choosing a better candidate (or a better VP).  I don't think we're making much headway by complaining either.  We need to have more active libertarians get better at persuasion.  And by this I mean, the extremism is irelevant, as long as we can convince people how much better their lives would be if we had much much smaller government, a free market, ect..