The Grand LP: Breakthru Year?
The Libertarian Party (LP), at least here in the Hinterland, seems ready for primetime
by Brian Wright
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism
to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson
And in This Corner
So now comes the LP of Michigan (LPM), with its annual convention in Okemos (a relatively well-to-do bedroom community of Lansing, the capital, and East Lansing, home to Michigan State University). Yours truly, being acting Webmaster and having a long history with the LPM—actually one of the founders in 1972—I continue to have high hopes. The photo on the right shows Bill Hall, current "political director" of the LPM. Political director is the job everyone wants: organizing the candidates and getting the paperwork together for the state elections commission.
Well, I've been there, too... back before personal computers. It was no fun then, and it's still no fun.
Yet the solitary man in the corner performing thankless clerical work to satisfy "who the state says can be on its run-for-office list" is sine qua non of Libertarian life. And part of the reason I regularly question the metaphysical rationale for the Libertarian Party in my heart of hearts.
"Incrementalism" vs. "Absolutism"
These terms have been used to frame the key issue of whether we "small-l" libertarians should participate in the electoral system ever since I've been a member and sometimes leader in the LP. Logical and moral consistency,
not to mention history, seem to argue for the direct approach. Where would we be today if the American colonists had said to the Brits, "Hey, man, if you perform that act of tyranny, we're going to, like, elect more friendly dudes to Parliament."?
Would Gandhi have been more successful as a political activist than he was by his absolutist nonviolent resistance?
I don't think so. Also, if, according to my view in the SNaP, the world is dominated by a Matrix of the Power Sick (MOPS),
wouldn't it prefer a political activism that stood no chance of challenging its power. In the USA, the Libertarian Party comes along in the early 1970s at the peak of antiwar activism—I mean a peace movement that truly threatens the corporate-fascist mass-murder machinery to its foundation.
So what do YAF[1] kids like me do? Instead of taking it to the streets to overthrow the Evil Oligarchy, we found and join the LP, learn Roberts Rules, and conduct meetings and conventions.
Qui bono?
That's the extreme negative and MOPS-opportunistic view of the LP and of modern Western political activism in general. Plus, the fact that legal barriers to third-party success are fat and electoral results slim tends to support the conviction that working within the system is playing a fixed game. But after years of having something to do with playing that game, and seeing the indirect and cultural effect of the Libertarian alternative especially in local politics,
I've eased up on the "purity of effectiveness" argument... mainly because people are still pretty much just people.
Cutting the LP Some Slack
It would be my preference instead of participating in the Libertarian exercise[2] to launch 500 Gandhis—who would simply refuse to cooperate with and thus end the coercive state tomorrow. I would do my part, too. But the time and place of the real Gandhi has come and gone: we are not a culturally distinct people dominated by a foreign power. The weeds of statism are home grown... more like pods delivered, while we sleep, by our neighbors on behalf of aliens—the banksters and their minions—who rule mostly by mind control. [Though, with a cruel, murderous iron fist ever more evident through the threadbare velvet glove.][
And you know what? The Gandhian pattern of absolute insistence on natural rights, civil disobedience, and nonviolent direct resistance to the moral depravity of state power is alive and well in the American freedom movement. Without going into detail, but simply pointing to such a Ron Paul phenomenon aftermath as the Restore the Republic organization, I can confidently state that the Revolution—nonviolent so far, but unswaveringly absolute to the resurrection of Constitutional liberty—is on. "You're not the boss of me" is putting fire in the bellies and hope on the table for millions of Americans. We will have our country back. It's not a matter for Congressional vote... by a Congress who ignores us anyway.
The Libertarian movement, which is to say, the Party, is also on.
The question is will the Party be part of the general restoration-of-liberty movement—part of "the Patriot Uprising"—or will it continue with its national candidates, in particular (Senators, Congresspeople, President and VP), to rationalize incremental solutions to statist slavery? Perhaps the issue of fundamental morality of Libertarian political activism can be best considered in the particular issue of hemp legalization.
Let's frame the issue like this:
You're an LP candidate with prospects of winning your state rep race in North Dakota, a state in which farmers have organized to defy the federal law and state acquiescence on agricultural hemp.
[1] Young Americans for Freedom. YAF was to the Goldwater phenomenon in 1964 what YAL (Young Americans for Liberty) is to the Ron Paul phenomenon in 2008.
[2] The presence or absence of the initial capital letter tells whether I mean
libertarian in the
generic freedom-movement-member sense or
Libertarian in the Libertarian Party sense.
So now comes the LP of Michigan (LPM), with its annual convention in Okemos (a relatively well-to-do bedroom community of Lansing, the capital, and East Lansing, home to Michigan State University). Yours truly, being acting Webmaster and having a long history with the LPM—actually 
