Libertarians need to…

Odd how so many of those comments could be reduced to “Libertarians need to stop being libertarian.”

I don’t understand– how can libertarians “reach out to the left” yet “get their heads out of their asses and become more Republican”, and then also “kick Republicans in the teeth”?

libertarians need to stop worrying about what everyone else wants them to do and just champion liberty. the rest of the world needs to relaize what damn fools they’re being when they vote for pseudo-tyrants

Libertarians need to get more cash into their campaigns.

Libertarians need to appeal to youth.

Libertarians need to stockpile firearms and ammo to prepare for the next american revolution!!!

Libertarians need to … keep our dirty laundry in the family.

(this)libertarian needs to stop accidentally double-posting

Libertarians need an image makeover that’ll attract more voters to their fold.

Libertarians need a flashy multi-million-dollar media campaign for themselves, aimed at younger voters. The prospect of true limited government that’ll stay out of your bedroom and entertainment center should be attractive enough, if given a hip MTV-style treatment. And to accomplish this…

Libertarians need more multi-million-dollar contributors. I wish I was one of them.

Lastly, Libertarians need a new logo with some kind of animal mascot. The Republican elephant and Democrat donkey are well ingrained in our pop culture, and there’s nothing that political cartoonists can conjure up to embody the Libertarian camp. No wonder the party gets ignored. I suggest something like a cat… they’re independent-minded and low-maintenance, which meshes well with the Libertarian view on government.

Libertarians need to be more pragmatic. They also should focus on running candidates for local and state elections. Once there are several states with 10-20% of the state congress represented bt libertarians, then worry about national elections.

In the meantime, vote for the most libertarian candidate in all elections. Make them tell you why a libertarian should vote fo rthem.

Libertarians need to quit the Libertarian Party.

I agree w/the comments suggesting that libertarians appeal to youth. While I think it is cliche to say this in reference to political parties, I think libertarian positions (properly expressed — any by this,I mean expressed as pragmatic policies, not dogmatic philosophies) resonate with young people. But then, there is that pesky two-party system……

Libertarians need to procreate before socialists outbreed us.

Libertarians need to buy ad spots in the World Series, Superbowl, or Olympics.

oh yea, a LP animal? i like the idea, though I can hear people here bitching about “how they don’t want to become just like the other parties”. even though adding a mascot would be of use, and does not mean we are like the repubilcrats. but what animal?

“Libertarians need to procreate before socialists outbreed us.”

Socialists aren’t spectacular procreators, so that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Libertarians need to quit blaming the product for lousy marketing.

Libertarians need to lose the white-flag attitude.

Winners never quit, quitters never win;
Never give up, no matter what.

Libertarians need to replace the “serentiy prayer”

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

with something more proactive and positive:

“God grant me the wisdom to know what needs changing;
the courage to try, no matter what the odds; and the tenacity to never give up.”

Libertarians need to learn to listen to the people they wish to govern, rather than ignoring them and then blaming voter ignorance for their defeats.

Libertarians need to listen to whatever our political opponents say – especially if they have a blog.

kcjerith – if that’s ten ACTIVE members, you own us Rutgers Libertarians.

We have to find and grip reality before we can do anything else. We seem to be stuck somewhere else.

if “need” motivates libertarinism, I’ll stop voting libertartarians. – a Douist

Douist, I need to live in country that were the government doesn’t enter my bedroom, computer, or my home. I need a government that is separte from the private sector and not intertwind with it, I need to be able to live my life based on my values. I think you mistook the point of this exercise, it helps people brainstorm various aspects of libertrainsm. It helps refocus the members of the party on what is important, and helps generate discussion.
You cliam that the elecotrate would never respond postively to the use of the word need, you may or may not be right. However that is not the point of this discussion, and I doubt the “elctroate” will ever have a clue we had it. The Marx quote is way out of line, that is not what this discussion is about.

D Worden, I stand correted. 15 members (on email list) 5 or six active.

How about fuck those ideas, and no.

I’m a libertarian, not some libertarian that’s abandoned libertarianism.

The Constitution Party is now the third largest party for a reason,

You mean in voter registrations? Because they aren’t in votes, candidates, or any other measure. And the vast majority of their registered voters think they are non-partisan due to state party names like American Independent. Nice trick, that.

Speaking of things the LP needs to do, it needs to learn how to play clever tricks like that.

Libertarians need to be more active on collage campuses

Very true!

Libertarians need to quit blaming the product for lousy marketing.

Also true.

Some Libertarians need to quit attacking and criticizing Congressman Ron Paul!!!
(You know who you are! Don’t be a dumbass!)
Grow up!
Ron Paul has been a great voice of libertarianism so bother to support him!!!
Libertarians need to be MORE pragmatic in support of others who declare libertarian ideals but are not running under ‘the official Party label.’
and be LESS pragmatic when it comes to the platform, beliefs and ideals!!!
You dont water down the platform into a soggy pablum that your average Republicrat grazes on. Its not there to suit their tastes or pander to them.
Libertarians need to get back to a previous Platform.
The Libertarian Party needs to put all money into a very few races.
Whats better? Giving a million candidates $1.00 or one candidate a Million dollars? The Party should be much more creative to get media attention.
The US Constitution is the Law of the Land, but I have yet to see a commercial that clearly shows why and how Republicrats are violating it!!

The Libertarian Partys website graphics SUCK!!!
The old one was better! (That one sucked too but not so much)

The Libertarian Partys Mascot should be the Buffalo!
A Native animal that was almost driven to extinction but has made a comeback!
Yes its a ‘herd’ animal but thats because theres strength in numbers.
It also represents the plank regarding Native American lands and honoring government signed treaties!
Its smaller than the Elephant but larger than the Donkey.
And its a cool animal!!!

Libertarians need to reach out to ethnic minorities.

Libertarians need to realize that angry middle aged white males aren’t always right.

Libertarians need to stop fighting among themselves.

Libertarians need to learn how to be inclusive NOT exclusive.

Libertarians need to hire ME as their campaign manager when they run for office next time!

Libertarians need to tell their critics where to stick it

Libertarians need to stop wasting scarce party funds to cry, blame and sabotage other Libertarians’ efforts and instead put the blame where it belongs: The State, and realize that’s who we need to fight. (You know who you are.)

“Have fun and get laid more often :)”

Best advice I’ve heard all day.

Libos need to buy guns
Libos need to buy ammo
Libos need to do target practise
Libos need to respond to “No Knock” raids with deadly force
Libos need to role play violence as an alternative to writing respectful letters to the very authorities that have imprisoned them
Libos need to prepare bolt holes
Libos need to practise http://www.agorism.com
Strewth, mebbe Libos need to be Revolutionaries and not fat, geeky nerds sitting at a PC typing this shit!

Well, really, one WOULD have to be a WACO oops, I mean Whacko, to believe everything written, no?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/011106terrorizeschool.htm

Yeeeaaaahhhh, right.

We libertarians need to start a well funded Libertarian News Network on cable, cause no one in the mainstream media has a clue.

Libertarians need to realize there is no silver bullet.

Libertarians need to appeal to the a huge percentage of the population who consider themselves “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” but have no party to call home.

Libertarians need to become the “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” party that the American people so desperately desire.

Libertarians need to leave the LP and start a “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” party encompassing all (most) of these points listed above. Leave the all tin foil hat-wearing anarchist types behind, they’re holding us down.

Libertarians need to recruit more pro-wrestlers as celebrity endorsers.

Libertarians need to focus on the gay wiccan priest vote.

Libertarians need to raise awareness of the Moon Treaty.

Libertarians need to focus more resources on unwinnable presidential contests.

Libertarians need to get better at whining when we don’t get press coverage for our paper candidates.

Libertarians need to apply Total Quantity Management to campaigns and candidates.

Libertarians need to spend more time nit-picking over Robert’s Rules of Order.

Libertarians need to be more creative when insulting each other. “Retard” is getting old.

Libertarians need to deny that insanity exists (a la Thomas Szaz).

Libertarians need to diss charity (a la Ayn Rand, Doug Casey).

Libertarians need to blame America first for the world’s problems.

More stuff I agree with:

Libertarians need to reach out to ethnic minorities.

Libertarians need to realize that angry middle aged white males aren’t always right.

“Have fun and get laid more often”

Everything from GreginOz # 65

but also: “We need to take a hint from the civil rights movement and stage sit ins.”

On the other hand, if post 10 then post 70.

“And O’Reilly was heard to call himself a “libertarian” the other night on his show.” LOL, he’s the furthest thing possible from a libertarian. The guy on Comedy Central is Stephen Colbert, good score!

Libertarians need to let the “Republican-lite” empty suits walk out of the party and go back to the R’s where they belong. Also true!

Another true fact, “The 9/11 truth movement alone is many, many times larger than the LP. And that is not including the many other truth movements out there”¦”

Libertarians need to stop being NSGOP bootlickers and call for IMPEACHING BUSH already!

Mike Nelson — interesting point regarding that item you referenced:

The early Church *DID* become moderate, and watered down its “hard-core” messages. That’s *WHY* it succeeded. It continued the tradition of comprimise to suit locals for centuries.

Ever heard of Saint Brigid?

Libertarians need a little lesson in marketing themselves and their ideas. Many of our ideals are spit out without any context that others can easily grasp. It isn’t that we need to reach out to the left or right but that we need the left and the right to understand why we believe what we do. It’s all too easy to say “we want to legalize drugs” but far too often we put no context to it. We often make issues black and white (even when they appear to be) when we need to understand there is some color in the subject that we should address.

As a former center lefty, it took some reading before I actually “got” what it was libertarians were saying and why they were saying it. I had always held some libertarian ideas but maybe with the wrong reasoning behind it. I guess as Mr. Maymin has stated, we are a bright light, but maybe we can do some things to make the light a bit less “hard” to look at.

Libertarians need to tell Mike Nelson to shut the fuck up and concentrate on electing Libertarians who want to move us away from the socialist agenda that has doomed this nation.

Libertarians need to stop being racist

he funny thing is, I’l bet hat Nelson’s positions and mine really arnt that far apart on the majority of issues.it would be interesting to survey.

Libertarians need to read Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, if only to recognize themselves in this line…

…”by my enemies of I prosper, from my friends I stand to lose”

Mike,

I wish not to discuss this in open forum in which detracts from the ultimate purpose. You have my e-mail address, address your grieveances there.

Mike
You are the antithesis of progression. Your tactics are getting old.

“And O’Reilly was heard to call himself a “libertarian” the other night on his show.”

Bill O’Reilly is not even remotely close to being a libertarian. Harry Browne was on “The O’Reilly Factor” back in 2000 (I recorded it and I’ve still got it on tape) and O’Reilly was very rude to Harry. He kept interupting him and spewing anti-liberty nonsense like if it wasn’t for Social Security old people would be living in the streets and that if drugs were legal there’d be more traffic accidents.

In 2004 Michael Badnarik was supposed to appear on the “O’Reilly Factor” to debate Bill over the Patriot Act (which Bill supports) and O’Reilly canceled Badnarik’s appearance at the last minute and refused to reschedule him.

“Also, the other dude at Comedy Central, the geeky serious looking guy, came out of the closet and called himself a “libertarian” too the other night.”

I saw that segement of “The Colbert Report.” Steven Colbert may very well be a libertarian.

Decline To State. In Nevada they are known as the Independent American Party and I think that a similar situation exsists in at least one or two other states. The majority of these registered voters have no idea what the party is about and many of them would probably not even agree with it if they knew.

In terms of actual party members and people elected to office the LP is ahead of the CP.

Word to Stuart.

Re: “libertarian” Bill O Reilly:

I dont think a whore like billy-o really knows anything. He probably thinks calling himself a libertarian is the cool thing for conservatives to do now. I don’t know if he thinks it’ll get him laid or get better ratings, but I’ve seen quite a few cons and rightwing socialist types call themselves “libertarian” recently…maybe they think people will like them better…maybe they’re so headfucked they think that they actually do favor minimal government. I don’t really know but this underscores the importance of letting people know what a libertarian is before our enemies take the word to define a subset of their beliefs.

We should steer clear of any merger with the Constipation Party.

A more sensible merger would be to triangulate between the Greens who like the Key Values

http://gp.org/tenkey.shtml

But not the Marxist Green Party platform;

Libertarians who don’t actually want to bring back the CSA complete with authentic 19th century chattel slavery, pave over as much of the planet as possible, and kiss the NSGOP’s fascist ass with plenty of tongue;

And Democrats who are tired of their me-too corporate whore double penetration party selling them out on peace and civil liberties issues.

Along the way it would be nice to pick up young anarchists ready to move beyond nihilism and syndicalism, and non-voters who hate the government but don’t pay much attention to it because all politicians appear to be SSDD (same shit different day).

I’d also like to see a return to constitutional government, secure borders, and real capitalism

Constitutional government is a failed experiment.
Constitutions always fail at limiting government. Limited government is like cutting out part of the cancer, it just grows right back.

Secure borders are also a myth. They are not desirable, because they imply that the government is at least partial owner of the whole country, with all the property rights this implies. Nor are they enforceable, as the drug war proves: where there’s a will, there’s a way to cross them.
What do the Berlin wall, Great Wall of China and Maginot Line have in common?

Capitalism is a word invented by Marxists to obfuscate the difference between free market/free association voluntaryism (mutualism) on the one hand, and corporate fascism on the other. By making these concepts the same thing in people’s minds, the only alternative to corporate fascism is Marxist Socialism (same thing in practice).

Paulie, and to everyone else (though you are the only to commeted on the issue so far. This link will take you an essay by Thoreau, it is about civil disobedience (hence the title), while i am sure some of you have read, my guess is many of you have not. It an amazing essay, in which Thoreau speaks out agaisnt a goverment which he veiwed as too powerful. And how to fight it

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/civ.dis.html

my computer is being dumb (or i am), so you will have to cut and paste it

“We should steer clear of any merger with the Constipation Party.

A more sensible merger would be to triangulate between the Greens who like the Key Values”

The Libertarian Party should stay clear of any “mergers” with any other parties and focus on building the Libertarian label.

FYI, this got picked up by Reason’s Hit & Run blog.

Constitutional government is a failed experiment.

no, not yet. And if it does fail, only the people themselves are to blame. I dont believe that people that cannot govern themselves with the aid of frameworks such as these could do any better without those frameworks. If they cant even make a self governed society work with all these things, how much better they will do without them?

And why do we keep fucking round robin debating these things when we havent gotten a single major law overturned
or elected a single congressman in 35 years?

Why Watered-Down Libertarianism hasn’t succeeded in three decades..

http://www.lp.org
http://www.lewrockwell.com

Libertarians need to stop being racist

Libertarians need to drop this “It’s okay to be a racist, bigot etc..” attitude. I heard libertarians defending racism with this attitude way too often. Sure, you can be a racist, but I don’t want you associated with myself, our political party. We’d rather lose than have your vote, go visit the Republicans or Constitutionalists.

Phil, from what I see, few people (if anyone) suggests a merger.
Although as Libertarian Party members we should applaud and encourage them on like minded
issues. That goes for the Greens too. We should also form limited issue specific alliances with them and build bridges.
The Constitution Party is light years ahead of the neocon and theocon dominated Republican Party. Any party that is Pro-Constitution and for less government is a vast improvement over your average drooling Republicrat.

There is nothing wrong with Libertarians also joining the Constitution Party if they so choose and be members of both parties at the same time (as I am) just as some are members of The Libertarian Party and another Party. (ie. libertarians still in the Republican Party for one example) As libertarians (small l) we should not heap abuse on people for decisions they have made in this area. To view the Constitution Party as a foe reduces the chance they will vote Libertarian if they have no candidate running. Some libertarians are advocating joining the Democratic Party as a stratagem, while I dont know how well that would turn out, I do think that they shouldnt be attacked especially if they have reasoned it through. The Libertarian Party needs every vote it can get and that is possible to do without compromise but with pragmatism regarding who is voting. Too many LP members are WAY too focused on fanatical ‘purity’
(according to whoever is doing the defining) and on purging all dissent

You need to let people be free to decide for themselves.
How can a person claim to be a libertarian and yet badger the hell out
of people and browbeat or manipulate them into being a ‘Real Libertarian’?
I have been guilty of this in the past. It doesnt work. It just makes people resentful. Let people move at their own speed and reason for themselves.
A really good product sells itself. We arent used car salesmen. We dont need trickery, insults, browbeating or bait and switch. We just need to keep telling the truth.

Thoreau’s awesome. Powerful stuff!

TW

no, not yet. And if it does fail, only the people themselves are to blame. I dont believe that people that cannot govern themselves with the aid of frameworks such as these could do any better without those frameworks. If they cant even make a self governed society work with all these things, how much better they will do without them?

Constitutional government isn’t self-government. It’s an attempt to limit government power, which is impossible: coercive government always, in every country and every era of history, found ways around such limits.

The fault isn’t the people’s, it is in the nature of government.

Why are we debating this? Because you can’t expect to get where you’re going unless you first know the destination. You might stumble on it accidentally but it’s far less likely than if you know where you’re headed.

Can we do better without the state? That’s like asking if your brain could do better without cancer.

Paulie; Re: your cancer analogy.

Oxygen is a corrosive poison that destroys organic life in sufficient quantity.

Without a minimal presence of it, human life cannot exist.

I refer you to George Washington’s ubiquitous “Fire” quote.

I would have to disagree with that analogy when it comes to government.

It’s a poison in any quantity, not necessary in any way, and like malignant cancer, always tends to spread.

Also like cancer, it will kill the patient if not stopped in time, and cutting out only part of it doesn’t cure the disease.

GW was wrong about many other things, too, such as believing that his family’s slaves would be worse off if they were emancipated.

Just because he was a revolutionary hemp farmer doesn’t make him the ultimate authority on every subject.

We could drop the idiocy of replacing our mascot the Statue of Liberty which is quite appropriate and focus on REAL tactics. I’m not for globalism, nor for entangling alliances but damn the cut and dry black and white BS I’ve seen slung back and forth on here.

Some of you have mentioned in the past that we can not eliminate taxes altogether. Well this is true with most things. As a realist I know that some of the programs we are currently “required” to pay ‘voluntarily‘ for are good, most however are a joke!

Should the government fund stem cell research? NO.
Should the governmnet ban stem cell research? NO.

Herein lies the difference and why people are confused and vote for the wrong candidates. The goal is confusion and misrepresentation!

So… My vote on this silly little “poll”…

Libertarians need to stop being nit-picky and bickering at each other and FIGHT! Soon we wont have a choice.

RFID anyone!? I’ll be anonymizing mine as soon as I get it!

ps. dez nuts