Democratic Failure Thread

Purely barking at the moon. To me, this is the key passage:

Unlike we libertarianish people, you people actually hold and have been holding significant political power in the US over the past 50 years.

I went on this rant before, but I'm sick of people sitting in coffee shops waiving their copy of Atlas Shrugged in our faces and smugly telling us what is wrong. You haven't done dick over the last 50 years to get anyone elected dog catcher. The Greens are newer and more successful. You talk about the need for a third party all the time, and don't do the hard work of organizing, running and winning elections. When you do decide to run, you punt your principles and run as republicans and when the republicans ******** things up you simply say, "I'm not really a republican, I just had to run this way." Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Gary Johnson and all the rest. You have created a brand. You could win a congressional or senate election as a Libertarian. Do it. The rest of you are every bit as annoying as the arrogant little communists with their John Lennon glasses hanging out in coffee shops around University of Chicago. Quit your bitching and run for office. You champion the language of the Constitution. Well, use it then and run for the offices that are established in that Constitution. The rest of us get lectured incessantly about "personal responsibility" and that if we don't like our situation then change it. Well, libertarians, stop writing and start knocking on doors and get someone . . . ANYONE . . . elected to something and start taking responsibility for the government that you think sucks so bad.

 

No he doesn't. Not as a Libertarian. He's a Republican and as a Republican he needs to take responsibility for Republican failures just like the author says that all democrats need to take responsibility for corporatism.

To complain about a fair fight, you actually need to be in a fight. Libertarians don't even try. The game is only fixed by money. The ********ing Koch Brothers are professed libertarians. So stop dicking around with the party that has caused just as many problems as the democrats and are just as responsible for "fixing" the game as the democrats and do something. Your bullshit whining about it being too hard rings hallow when an independent like Ross Perot snuck up and won a bigger chunk of the electorate that the libertarians have won in their entire existence. Is the game fixed at City Hall? Is it fixed in the state legislatures across the country? Is it fixed at the county level of government? Of course not. Go bang on doors and get people elected. And when you get enough elected at the local level, go for some state wide offices. How about state treasurer? That should be right in the Libertarian wheel house, no?

Just what if? What if they would have taken my advice 40 years ago. Stop pontificating and start doing the hard work required to build a party. Fund raise. Run at the local level. Run at the state level. Instead, you sit back telling us how we have ********ed everything up and that Whaaa Whaaa Whaaa the game is too unfair. We can't get anyone elected president or even US Senator because the others aren't playing fair. I'm sick of the bitching. The party your guys most closely align themselves with is close to being in disarray. There is opportunity everywhere, and I'm pretty sure you have some people who can bank roll a movement as well. If Rand Paul really had a sack, he would drop the R and pick up an L and he would run that way when he is up for reelection and he would run that way if he wants to run for President.

I thought Libertarians and libertarians were all about principle? Then why do they hold office in a party that does not support their ideals? It's all nonsense.

Unlike we libertarianish people, you people actually hold and have been holding significant political power in the US over the past 50 years.

Yep. You libertarianish people just sit back from the comfort of zero accountability and bitch about everything that is wrong. Sorry Matt, but its the truth. My neighbor is a republican. He didn't like what was going on at the school board and so he ran and won. In my neighborhood, a man or woman with an "L" next to their name would have had a decent shot as well. More of a shot here than a "D". But it just never happens. Every libertarian I know talks responsibility but doesn't want responsibility. They are comfortable in a perpetual state of complaint.

 

Thank you for at least acknowledging my point. This is a reasonable post. I agree that there is a built in advantage and that advantage is more acute the higher you climb the political totem pole. But it is not impenetrable. If Perot didn't wig out and go in and out of that race, he honestly had a shot. I voted for him.

But I find it incomprehensible for libertarians to say that we can't elect anyone. There are places in this country that are more than ripe for your philosophies. Hell, look at y-lee coyote. He claims that his state is much like him and he is far from Republican. Look at Jesse Jr.'s seat. A couple of establishment democrats got trounced because a sugar daddy invested a couple of mil in the race based on the gun issue alone. How much did the Koch brothers dump into the election for unsuccessful republicans? Republicans that don't really hold the same values across the board that they do. They are more you than Mitt Romney. What if they took half of that money and targeted some congressional races where a Libertarian could win?

You acknowledge that it is difficult which is sane. Matt makes it sound impossible which is an excuse. I'm saying all of this, not simply to bitch at libertarians. I actually like a moderate form of what they espouse and I think their voice . . . their ACTUAL voice in government could be a very good thing. I don't really like Rand, but I do think Gary Johnson in the US Senate would be a very good thing. I've talked about "loyal opposition" before, and we need that more than ever. People who have principles, fight for those principles, use that fight to moderate and influence legislation in a positive way and ultimately look to compromise to get some of what they want.

You don't get some of what you want from the coffee house, whether you are a communist or a libertarian.

 

Holy shit, you think this republican party is moving more towards a libertarian image? I'll see your vaginal probe and raise you an escalation in Syria.

Honestly, I think Libertarianism would work quite well at the local level where fiscal responsibility and creating a favorable environment for small business risk takers could thrive. I'm also advocating Koch money for congressional races. I'd rather have actual libertarians in those spots than the tea party wannabes. You want to be "further up the food chain" because it is easy. But you can't get there because the game is rigged. Convenient.

Where were the Koch brothers and their money during the republican primaries? I honestly don't know who they supported, but my guess was that they were not bankrolling Gary Johnson, or this party that you seem to think is being transformed would have actually allowed him on stage for debates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_debates,_2012

 

Which is another answer to the earlier exchange on why the libs aren't getting anywhere as a party. Their views are just too hard to reconcile with wanting to be a public official. Which then answers the question as to why the Kochs and Norquists of the world are choosing to co-opt the Republicans rather than helping the LP.

 

I get coffee and I want that.

But seriously, libertarians are the right-wing equivalent of dogmatic marxists. While there are different flavors of both, they are extremely similar to each other in that each of them have a Theory that trumps objective reality. Each of the Theories is, from within anyway, very elegant and internally consistent to a point and each plays on the human desire for "fairness".

That noble desire get perverted, however, because each theory is completely one sided and its adherents are blinded by its appeal to their particular psychology and so any objective evidence against the Theory is completely discarded out of hand without being examined. Naturally, this lack of regard for let alone agreement with external reality means that the Theory will never work in real life.

And both Libs and Marxists have plenty of excuses for why their particular Theory fails to the extent that it is put into practice. Usually, the excuse is some riff on the attempt at putting the Theory into practice was not extreme or ideologically pure enough and if only the most extreme and pure version was enacted, everything would work exactly as predicted and nirvana would be achieved once and for all. The failures also make them extremely wary of any further attempts at practical implementation and so they are content sit on the sidelines and bitch at people who are actually trying to get something done in the real world.

 

I'm not sure where you get the idea that there's extreme hostility to business and the private sector from the Left. But it's very nearly completely wrong.

I personally subscribe to the view that giant parasitic multi-national corporations are by far the biggest threat to the world. But that doesn't mean that I view all business, or even most business, or indeed even 99% of business in a negative way.

I'm not going to try and proselytize you on behalf of the Green Party; I've seen enough of your posts to know that we don't share priorities. But I do want to point out that your perception of the Left's view of business is 99% wrong.

 

"Pushing the boundaries of debate?" Those two extremes aren't pushing anything. The debate takes place within government not in the classroom or coffee shop.

 

It takes place if you can get some people elected as MPs. If you don't have any representatives in the government, then no one will care what you have to say, just like America. While we don't have coalition governments, having a significant caucus in our system can be influential. But only if you have actual members. Hell, get just one senator (like Bernie Sanders) and you will get some sway over what goes on. I don't think libertarians WANT a seat at the table.

 

Spinning unrealistic Theory while almost completely ignoring objective reality is not "pushing the boundaries of debate" any more than spinning completely unrealistic and unresearched fiction about space aliens is "pushing the boundaries of science". Thankfully, marxists are completely marginalized and powerless in the US. I wish the libs were that way too but sadly a few billionaires recognize their potential as useful idiots and so pump millions into helping them make our problems worse by promoting crappy muddle headed Theory with no practical solutions to those problems.

That said, if you're bored with the center (ie., the Dems) and want radicals, there's already the GOP on the right and the Greens on the left who, unlike marxists or libs, are at least tenuously connected to reality, the Greens more so than the Reeps.