Wolf's putting her finger on it. I've been giving this some thought, as I find Radar an interesting foil/opponent, in between any offerings by either of us to tie the other one's dick into a figure-8 knot.

One thing I better clear up right now is that I am not a paid-up LP member -- yet. What I am is registered as a Libertarian voter in California. I involve myself fairly deeply in the voting process, as I'm a polls worker on election days. (I've a decision to make as to whether I should work in the county Elections division for a bit of temp work or again be a polling place's Inspector for the upcoming special election in November. They pay you if you want them to, not a huge lot, but still grownup money.)

With a body of philosophy with three major and separate streams in it, the right-, the left-, and the anarcho-libertarian, libertarianism is already an umbrella term, and here lie the shades, or the varieties, if you prefer. The individual libertarian likely accommodates ideas from more than just one of these three in his philosophy of libertarianism -- for an instance, there is a lot in Rothbard's For A New Liberty that I strongly agree with, but I do not share his (tempered) enthusiasm for anarchism as a remedy for anything that actually needs curing.

You've described the Non-Aggression Principle. I am here to say that if you want libertarianism to have real influence on Earth, you must dump the Non-Aggression Principle as here described. The Non-Aggression Principle does not serve libertarianism. It castrates it, making it not merely vitiated but sterile also.

Without the physical and mental capacity to resist the goon-squad suppressive tactics of the antilibertarian rulerships out there, libertarianism will not spread to those very places that need it the most: goon-squad country. The NAP would keep the Libertarian Party and libertarian ideals as a sort of hothouse plant ranging only within the United States, producing only a bouquet of parlor politicians. They can talk nice talk, but where's the action? Where's the effect? Concentrate more on deeds than on theoretical ideological purity, or you won't have a party. You'll have a philosophers' hobby -- and nobody makes a better world by mental masturbation no matter how good it makes them feel, okay? Not that I'm complaining about aesthetics! You need men and women of action now. Make no mistake: peace is preferable -- but there will be wars. You want a libertarian world? -- wars must not defeat the libertarians.

You need trench fighters. You need the people who can make Republicans into Libertarians and people who can stop socialist Democrats cold. Yes, I'm for the time being begging the question of how the socialist Democrats might be better converted than merely brickbatted across the bridge of the nose. But do you have these people? I've been asked myself, out of the blue, if I might consider running for the office of harbor commissioner for Port Hueneme. Talk about your long shots! I declined on the grounds that I didn't think I understood the job well enough to expect to discharge it competently if elected. IIRC the LPoC did not field a candidate for that office that year. You need people who are prepared for a protracted conflict, for conflict there will be, and it will take a steely determination to carry us through times of not much reward or even times of defeat.


I contend it is miscalling things to say Iraq is either unprovoked or a separate war -- hell, the big thing our foes have in common is there isn't a libertarian thought in their fevered heads, yet democracy, which is not antithetical to Islam, is a more libertarian sort of governance than the feudaloid despotism most of them are stuck in. Iraq is a campaign in the overall war with people whose interests and privileges are threatened if political power and its attendant economic opportunities get spread widely around in the population -- the sine qua non of a genuine republic. It's even more sine qua non of libertarianism.

Paul, in one regard I'm a better libertarian than you are: I say to you liberty is every bit as good for Yusuf al-Iraqi and Dost Muhammad al-Afghani as it is for Joe "Freedom Freak" Sixpack. I say liberty should not be confined to within the shores of North America -- in some measure because we don't have anti-liberty-by-law troubles springing from within this continent. These problems come from places where libertarianism isn't practiced, or even thought of. We can think of people who aren't remotely as freedom-minded as we are, living just across town, but these do not have the weight of the State behind them. I say we must be prepared to operate in environments where they do.

I'm a better libertarian precisely because I support, in supporting the Iraq campaign, the removal of the tyrant, even if he doesn't want to cease his tyranny. The tyrant is anti-libertarianism, personified. This means prosecuting a just war; if you're going to fight a war it may as well be a just one. The tyrant will not hesitate to prosecute a war against you. If he does it efficiently enough and you die, what then of the liberty you hoped for? Better for liberty if the tyrant dies in your place. Better for your soul if you arrange to kill him instantly rather than, say, by impalement. Impalement gives the tyrant time to contemplate his sins and appreciate his passage from this life to the next -- but it gets your soul muddy, too.

In viewing wiping tyrants off the world's slate as some kind of evil, I say you fail libertarianism: your view is too short, your ambit too narrow. Time to see what Libertarianism can do for the world. That's the greater picture.

Blue, H-Monkey, Bruce: Amazing Grace is a tune of great musical merit, and is a tune for the ages. Almost every piper on Earth also knows it -- I've met exactly one piper who didn't, and I taught it to him. The guy'd never sung it in church. Maybe he was a Unitarian or something. It's also the rock simplest tune there is on the pipes; there is precisely one spot in the tune you need to play carefully to avoid the technical error called the "crossing noise." Easy, easy, easy; not only could a piper play it in his sleep, he could play it drugged.

That aside, the tune isn't particularly funerary. Another popular tune for funerals is Dvoràk's tune sometimes called "Going Home." Contemplative, melodious, and a slow march. But the real funeral tune on the pipes for my money is "Flowers of the Forest." "Amazing Grace" can bring tears to even the most self possessed of stiff-upper-lippers, but "Flowers of the Forest," played at a deliberate pace and with schmaltz (and that's deliberate, too) can make you tear your heart out of your chest with your fingernails for grief. The tune sobs and wails, and calls for a bit of self-possession on the piper's part if played solo. It's probably easier with a trio of pipers. The tune might even have an arrangement of seconds for one of the pipers to play.

I'll attest to that. I had to listen to between 25 and 35 drunk pipers play it a least a dozen times every Memorial day. There wasn't a deer, rabbit or squirrel within 3 miles of the place by nightfall.
Oh, and all the dogs were psycho. :bonk:

Dogs who aren't living in a piper's house do often visibly dislike the sound of the pipes. I use visibly advisedly: I'm taking upwards of 90dB and maybe more right there snuggled into the instrument -- I can see the dog's mouth moving, but if he's any distance away, I cannot hear him.

I've got news for you. You're not a better libertarian than I am in any sense because you're not a libertarian in any sense. The Non-Aggression Principle IS libertarianism. It defines libertarianism. Saying the LP should dump the NAP is like saying Christians should dump all the stuff about Jesus.

Libertarianism has been a philosophy for hundreds of years. It has always been about self-ownership, personal responsibility, and the non-initiation of force for political gain or social engineering. This is the foundation of libertarian thought and libertarian philosophy. You can't take away any part of it.

Republicans are no closer to being libertarians than Democrats. If anything Republicans are even worse than Democrats. They grow government at rates even the most socialist of Democrats would be ashamed of. They violate civil rights in the name of "security", they think it's the job of America to rule the world.

You think you're more libertarian than I am because you'd misuse the U.S. military and violate the U.S. Constitution to overthrow some dictator somewhere else on earth. The war in Iraq was NEVER about setting people free, and there will always be some dictator. But the tyrant becomes us if we attack.

You're saying that if some foreign country has a form of government other than democracy, or has policies we don't like, or treats its people in a way we don't like, that alone justifies America launching an unprovoked war of aggression to overthrow those people.

What if China decided they didn't like the way Americans live, and doesn't like our policies? What if the rest of the nations in the UN agree and decide to overthrow America? Would it be ok? Would it be ok for the UN to decide America should be disarmed and to tell America they'd send in people from Cuba, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to inspect our missile silos, military bases, the pentagon, and even the whitehouse at 3am without warning?

Why not?

The answer is because America has sovereignty. No more or less sovereignty than any other nation on earth. No nation on earth requires America's or the UN's permission to develop any weapons they choose or make any policies they want or to have any form of government including non-democratic ones.

Why should the rest of the world respect our sovereignty if we won't respect theirs? The fact is America's authority ends where America's borders end. We aren't the police of the world or the enforcers of UN sanctions.

I wish freedom for every single person on earth. But before we go around starting unprovoked wars trying to free other people, how about we free American people first. Our civil rights are being violated at an alarming rate. How about we fix our own country and restore the freedom we had just 30 years ago? How about we return America to the vision the founders had where government played virtually no role in our daily life rather than getting involved in almost every part of it?

Once we do that, we'll have far less enemies. How about we return America to being a neutral and non-interventionist nation that trades with and offers friendship to all nations but doesn't use our military to get involved in their disputes?

If you as an individual want to fight for the freedom of people in Iraq, or China, or anywhere else on earth, you should be free to go there and fight to overthrow that kind of tyrrany and to accept the consequences if you fail. You should be free to send your money, guns, and even yourself if you want to free the people of other nations. Just don't use MY military to do it because the military of the United States is only for the DEFENSE of American soil and ships and nothing else.

Not one person in Iraq is defending America. Not one U.S. military member in Iraq is following a lawful order. Each and every one of them is violating their oath, and the U.S. Constitution.

The fact is you can't be a libertarian and a supporter of the war in Iraq at the same time. Those two things are diametrically opposed. Being one disqualifies you from being the other.

I just want to say that I'm enjoying this, and also that Godwin's law does not apply if someone uses Hitler or Nazism *correctly* in this thread.

Oh, also, people in the mainstream parties will have something to learn from it. Radar's take is that the party should be limited only to hardasses who believe precisely as he does and therefore half of the people in it are there illegitmately. He thinks the LP will be stronger and more successful if half the people are purged from it. If you don't agree, consider what this means to your own party, if you affiliate with one. For example, many Ds now take the approach that the party will have more appeal if it takes "truly" Democratic approaches to policy. Does this or does this not work with Radar? Hint: the L party membership is between 20-25,000.

So what you're saying is that the Libertarian party would be precisely as effective demographically after the exodus as before.

Statistically, that's true. In the LP it doesn't really make one bit of difference if they represent 0.02% of the population, or 0.01%. In the DP or RP it makes a really big difference if they represent 50% of the population, or only 25%.

Considering the outcome of the last two national elections, it doesn't take many people to become a force to be reckoned with at the ballot box......if they get organized. :smack:

Actually what UT is saying is that the LP should sacrifice our principles for the sake of growth. This would make us no better than the major parties. Our uncompromising principles are what make us infinitely better than they are. I also believe the party would grow faster if we had a unified, consistent, and clear message without factions within the party arguing over them. In other words, I'd like everyone in the LP to actually be a libertarian. Not what I personally consider to be a libertarian, but what the Non-Aggression Principle (the defining characteristic of libertarianism) considers someone to be a libertarian.

UT is trying to make me out to be some twisted, hard-nosed, guy off the deep end but in fact the exact opposite is true. I welcome all libertarians to the party. And I'll work with non-libertarians outside the party on areas we agree on and work against them where we disagree. I'm a big tent libertarian. I just insist that everyone in the tent is an actual libertarian.

If the LP message had more continuity and consistency, people would be more apt to join the party. If I went to a store where I asked 2 employees to describe the products they sell, and got 2 entirely different and conflicting answers, I wouldn't buy that product. If I went to another store and got the same description of the product no matter who I asked, and it sounded like a product I wanted (freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, prosperity, etc.) I'd buy it without question.

Everyone should know that the LP stands for smaller government, personal responsibility, pro-choice in all things, and is against the initiation of force for political gain or social engineering.

Those who disagree with any part of that have no valid place within the LP. The purpose of the Libertarian Party is to carry out libertarian philosophy. Libertarian philosophy is based on the Non-Aggression Principle and Self-Ownership.

Whether or not the LP would be more or less effective is debatable, but our message would have more clarity, consistency, and continuity. Everyone would know exactly what we stood for. I think it would bring us far more members and better qualified candidates. I believe it would help us in the long run.

You need not sacrifice YOUR prinicples.

You think for some reason that there is a coherent philosophy based on the NAP. That's sad.

No, it's not sad. It's a fact. What's sad is you aren't educated enough or libertarian enough to realize it. The Libertarian philosophy is coherent, and is based on the NAP. It's been around for longer than many other philosophies.

I was Libertarian enough. I got smarter and studied more things. Applying the NAP as a complete philosophy is a joke.

What does the NAP tell you about epistemology?

What does it tell you about the existence of a supreme being?

Why do educated, 100/100ers use it to arrive at entirely different conclusions on the law and abortion?

100/100 people don't arrive at different conclusions about abortion. All libertarians support the SOLE DOMINION of each person over their own body and the organisms growing within it. NOBODY else on earth or anywhere else has any say in the matter. To question the life and death decisions someone makes with regard to the organisms living inside their body is like questioning the life and death decisions of a supreme being over the people on earth (assuming you believe in one).

Nobody who supports using the force of government to prevent or punish someone for any decisions or actions they take with their own body or the organisms within that body are a libertarian.

What does the NAP tell you about the nature of knowledge itself? Just that it's not up for us to determine what others are to know, or how they can know about anything.

What does the NAP tell us about the existence of a supreme being? Just that it is up to each of us to make that decision for ourselves, and nobody else on earth has any legitimate right to force you to believe in a particular supreme being or lack thereof.