I was on a Livestream the other night and the host was talking about how the Libertarian Party in many locales must gather signatures in order to get on the ballot and often times the two parties in charge will just change the rules.
I decided back around 1980 that a single reason for the existence of the LP would be to produce TV ads for their federal candidates and then move heaven and earth to get funding to put them on local TV news. The ads would denounce by name the lying anchors and management of the station and demand that they lose their broadcast licenses. Other LP members never seemed interested. Imagine having done that this year to finally get some Covid truth on TV? Mr. and Ms. Anchor, why do you support starving all those poor people with your baseless lockdowns (video of starving kids).
I think that the average LP member is terribly afraid that the deplorables and third world minority types just won't do the right thing when given their freedom. In that world, there would be no role for the SJW-LP member, or any SJW, to guide their lives in a proper direction. Plus, if given their freedom, they won't wear their mask.
The LP of today has neither principles nor the stomach for a fight. To win anything (including respect) you need both. They are sad, sorry, bargain basement, late night infomercial hucksters. Maybe not even that. I'd vote for the Shamwow guy, before I'd vote for the LP.
I respect the raving left more than the LP, because even tho they don't give a shit about anybody but themselves, they did whatever it took to defend their principles...as warped and ephemeral as they are. And it worked. They won.
So what does the LP...the party of the NAP and individual rights...do? Well, not appeal to people who at least nominally believe in individual rights. Nope. They prostrate themselves at the feet of the very mob who wants to destroy them. For what? Are they so delusional that they think they will be spared? Maybe yes...and that's sad.
Nobody respects or trusts a turncoat. Face it, from their first woke tweet, the LP ceased to be, in any way, libertarian. They became just another weak, useful tool of the left...and barely that. Even worse, the left doesn't want or need their fealty...but they gave it anyway, every chance they had.
Pathetic.
The only way the LP ever earns any respect, is if the first act is to burn it the fuck down and spread its ashes to the wind. No, it's not a NAP violation. Putting the LP to the torch, is an act of self defense. Then, it would have to be rebuilt by people who not only believe in the NAP, property rights, etc, but are willing to defend it. That includes destroying all enemies...and that means stomp them until they fuck right off.
The LP has to go from, 'how may I capitulate to you today?', to 'Fuck around and find out'.
Principles, philosophies and property rights don't mean shit unless you can keep what you claim is yours, and you can only do that by fighting for it.
No bowing down. No apologies. No compromises. No more fucking bullshit.
I would say trying to court the Trump voter will be no more successful than the LP's attempts to court disaffected Republicans in the 80s and 90s. The culmination of that strategy was the LP running a former drug warrior as their presidential candidate, with the utterly unique campaign promise of, "I apologize for the last forty years of my career, elect me one more time and I promise I won't do all that same shit again."
The Trump voter's problem IS their lack of ideology. When you reach 'agreement' with someone in a way not based on ideology, it means you're both in the same spot by pure happenstance. The vast majority of these Trump voters do NOT understand freedom, they do NOT understand the state. They are the kinds of people who may occasionally hate the state but LOVE the cops, so they hate the mafia but LOVE that nice young man who is going to come and break their kneecaps when they don't pay that mafia. What that means is even if you manage to forge some 'alliance' with these people and advance liberty, they will only advance it so far, and once those points of disagreement and misunderstanding become exposed they will happily cheer the cops as they bash your skull in for noncompliance.
The only purpose for any large scale liberty movement is to reach people who are already libertarians and anarchists and just don't realize it because they've never had those arguments and ideas articulated in such a way as to make sense to them. You may convince some people along the way, it won't be many.
I decided back around 1980 that a single reason for the existence of the LP would be to produce TV ads for their federal candidates and then move heaven and earth to get funding to put them on local TV news. The ads would denounce by name the lying anchors and management of the station and demand that they lose their broadcast licenses. Other LP members never seemed interested. Imagine having done that this year to finally get some Covid truth on TV? Mr. and Ms. Anchor, why do you support starving all those poor people with your baseless lockdowns (video of starving kids).
This would be a great strategy but it's more important to pander to those who hate you I assume.
I think that the average LP member is terribly afraid that the deplorables and third world minority types just won't do the right thing when given their freedom. In that world, there would be no role for the SJW-LP member, or any SJW, to guide their lives in a proper direction. Plus, if given their freedom, they won't wear their mask.
I can't argue with any of that.
The LP of today has neither principles nor the stomach for a fight. To win anything (including respect) you need both. They are sad, sorry, bargain basement, late night infomercial hucksters. Maybe not even that. I'd vote for the Shamwow guy, before I'd vote for the LP.
I respect the raving left more than the LP, because even tho they don't give a shit about anybody but themselves, they did whatever it took to defend their principles...as warped and ephemeral as they are. And it worked. They won.
So what does the LP...the party of the NAP and individual rights...do? Well, not appeal to people who at least nominally believe in individual rights. Nope. They prostrate themselves at the feet of the very mob who wants to destroy them. For what? Are they so delusional that they think they will be spared? Maybe yes...and that's sad.
Nobody respects or trusts a turncoat. Face it, from their first woke tweet, the LP ceased to be, in any way, libertarian. They became just another weak, useful tool of the left...and barely that. Even worse, the left doesn't want or need their fealty...but they gave it anyway, every chance they had.
Pathetic.
The only way the LP ever earns any respect, is if the first act is to burn it the fuck down and spread its ashes to the wind. No, it's not a NAP violation. Putting the LP to the torch, is an act of self defense. Then, it would have to be rebuilt by people who not only believe in the NAP, property rights, etc, but are willing to defend it. That includes destroying all enemies...and that means stomp them until they fuck right off.
The LP has to go from, 'how may I capitulate to you today?', to 'Fuck around and find out'.
Principles, philosophies and property rights don't mean shit unless you can keep what you claim is yours, and you can only do that by fighting for it.
No bowing down. No apologies. No compromises. No more fucking bullshit.
I would say trying to court the Trump voter will be no more successful than the LP's attempts to court disaffected Republicans in the 80s and 90s. The culmination of that strategy was the LP running a former drug warrior as their presidential candidate, with the utterly unique campaign promise of, "I apologize for the last forty years of my career, elect me one more time and I promise I won't do all that same shit again."
The Trump voter's problem IS their lack of ideology. When you reach 'agreement' with someone in a way not based on ideology, it means you're both in the same spot by pure happenstance. The vast majority of these Trump voters do NOT understand freedom, they do NOT understand the state. They are the kinds of people who may occasionally hate the state but LOVE the cops, so they hate the mafia but LOVE that nice young man who is going to come and break their kneecaps when they don't pay that mafia. What that means is even if you manage to forge some 'alliance' with these people and advance liberty, they will only advance it so far, and once those points of disagreement and misunderstanding become exposed they will happily cheer the cops as they bash your skull in for noncompliance.
The only purpose for any large scale liberty movement is to reach people who are already libertarians and anarchists and just don't realize it because they've never had those arguments and ideas articulated in such a way as to make sense to them. You may convince some people along the way, it won't be many.