A Question For My Fellow Libertarians

If you've actually cast your allegiance with the Libertarians, it was likely a conscious decision and not one you 'inherited' (let's face it - most people, not all, take on the political leanings of their parents).

In another thread, SpittinCobra pointed out that he didn't believe that a Republican would ever vote for a Libertarian. I found this to be an interesting take, as most of the Libertarians I personally know are disillusioned Republicans.

I'm curious about how you (Libertarians) have arrived at your particular point of view, and what background you came from. How did you evolve politically to become a Libertarian, and did you come from a more right-of-center or left-of-center background.


Maybe I'll turn this into a little informal survey and total up 'righties', 'lefties', and 'others' in a week.

Good question hoonie, I will tell you how I became a Libertarian.

I quickly realized as I studied the republican and democrat parties that neither one wanted to actually make things better. They just wanted to continue with the status quo and increase government spending. I believe that the only way we can make the US better is to decrease government spending and decrease the size of the government, the Libertarian Party is the only real party that supports that.

Thx for the response, Lockheed! (surprise - I agree with your view of need for a smaller federal government) Have you always voted Libertarian since turning 18, or did you evolve to your position from the left or right over time?

I realized that I was in favor of personal responsibility when I was about 20. I don't think the government should be able to dictate how you can live your life.

While I don't agree with every plank in the Libertarian platform, the most important one for me is personal choice and smaller government.

My parents growing up were always a little left of center. I am a bit more conservative then them. So in my case I figured out what was important to me, and didn't just adopt what they did.
Politics were never heavily discussed as I was growing up though.

Actually I just turned 18 and will be voting for the first time in this upcoming election :-) The problem is that in North Carolina its very hard to get on the ballot and I don't know if Badnarik will be an option.

I am a computer programmer by trade. I tend to look at the government as any other system. I have learned that transparency, small size and an minimum number of rules yields the most efficient, less error prone system. Our current government is a prima example of a bloated system that does not work well because it has become crufty with legacy. I support Libertarians because they seek to reduce government into a manageable size.

Take for example the tax code, I do not think anyone alive knows the entire thing. This is the point where the government begins to control the people and not the proper vice-versa.

Originally posted by HoonieSkoba
If you've actually cast your allegiance with the Libertarians, it was likely a conscious decision and not one you 'inherited' (let's face it - most people, not all, take on the political leanings of their parents).

Well my mother was a liberal (figures) and my father was a conservative even though he was a gm worker and not at all a rich dude..
Together they made their way up from a poor neighbourhood to middle class, and then when they divorced my mom married a rich dude and my dad had to pay my mom child support and went back down to a poor neighbourhood...
Now i'm gone he is in a middle upper class neighbourhood..
But still a conservative..

In another thread, SpittinCobra pointed out that he didn't believe that a Republican would ever vote for a Libertarian. I found this to be an interesting take, as most of the Libertarians I personally know are disillusioned Republicans.

Well I became a conservative in college but something wasn't right... so I started questioning it more and more... I guess you could say that conservatives who join the lp are disillusioned, that s good word to use..
It's like a muslim questioning his religion or a catholic for that matter... The more questions you ask instead of allowing yourself to get spoonfed the answers you find and you realise what truths they spew, aren't actually truths at all.. Except of course for lowering taxes... But there is always an exception or a sacrifice to give...

I'm curious about how you (Libertarians) have arrived at your particular point of view, and what background you came from. How did you evolve politically to become a Libertarian, and did you come from a more right-of-center or left-of-center background.

When I thought this o#ry was fudged I was looking around to figure things out and then I stumbled across the libertarian party... And voila... They were everything I ever hoped for... They were everything boths sides claim to be around election time except they aren't full of #..

Yep, you can call me a dissolutioned Republican who has lost faith in the Republican party. Don't get me wrong. I support the War on Terror and think it's a real problem that has to be dealt with, so I would rather see Bush in office than Kerry, but frankly I'm sick of the far religious right and the hit our personal liberties will take if they have their way.

Both parties have become too corrupt to do things properly and efficently. The polarization between the two parties is our biggest problem today and it really holds us back. I have always believed that political conflict during campaigns was proper and healthy. However, once the vote has been taken and the winner declared, the losing side should get over it and work with the winner to provide the best service to our country. This isn't what happens now though.

I don't think the democrats understand how much they have damaged the core of our system with their attempts to steal (yes, steal!) the 2000 election. By refusing to accept the outcome and fighting the elected president at every turn, they have erroded America's confidance in the system itself. The worst part is, I fully expect them to try it again if this election is at all close, further damaging the country as a whole. They will put their own pride and desire for power ahead of the good of the country once again.

I can support neither of the two political parties (not that I would ever support the democrats). They no longer represent the people they claim to, and no longer do what is best for the nation, just what is best for themselves.

In my experience, those that you're speaking of are in fact very moderate libertarians.

If you were to become a more adamant Libertarian, you'd most likely be the polar opposite of a Conservative Republican.

SpittinCobra's analysis is one that I find to be completely accurate. And, it's becoming more and more true.

you're more likely to see a disillusioned Republican at a DNC than a Libertarian one. You should go check out the LP's website, and read their statement of position.

Originally posted by Loki
If you were to become a more adamant Libertarian, you'd most likely be the polar opposite of a Conservative Republican.

I agree with you about most social issues (drugs, gay unions, religion in government), but not about economic ones.

Originally posted by Loki
SpittinCobra's analysis is one that I find to be completely accurate. And, it's becoming more and more true.

I hope this is true. The Libertarians needs to attract a larger percentage of the electorate, and they'll have a tough time doing so with their current stance on environmental issues (one area where I differ from the party line). They have to face up to the fact that the 'individual' is not always sacred, and that there are shared resources (air, water) in a community which require protection. Maybe a topic for another thread...

Originally posted by Loki
you're more likely to see a disillusioned Republican at a DNC than a Libertarian one. You should go check out the LP's website, and read their statement of position.

I'm pretty familiar with the LP platform. It calls for smaller government across the board (possible exception: defense spending). I must admit that I find your assertion surprising given all the Libertarian leaning websites that demonize Democrats more than Republicans (Drudge, Boortz, WorldNetDaily). If you can point me to a Libertarian website that swings more the other way, I'd be interested...

Originally posted by Loki
you're more likely to see a disillusioned Republican at a DNC than a Libertarian one. You should go check out the LP's website, and read their statement of position.

No, the democrats are too close to being socialists, in policy if not idealolgy. In truth, I believe that the Democratic leadership are elitists for the most part and like TV evangalists, I have to wonder how many of them actually believe the pap they spew upon the world. Regardless, they sure don't conduct themselves according to their stated beliefs or live under the conditions they would have the rest of us endure.

I have read the LP website pretty extensively, and while I don't agree with their entire platform, I think they have the best ideas for bringing the government back to the people, which is where it belongs. It's painfully obvious that neither the Dems or Reps are going to do it. The Greens are totally unrealistic in there goals and the rest of the parties just do not have enough people to make a difference on a national level.

If nothing else, I feel pretty sure that no Libertarian is going to think they have the right to come in my dwelling and tell me what I can and can't do with my own body. If you want to know the truth, the Libertarians are the only party that doesn't want to put me in jail. How could I not support them?

I was pretty disillusioned after the Army, coming from a family of moonshiners I never trusted the Government to begin with and my stint with the Army didnt help. If you pick up a history book or ever been to war you know that one thing a Government and I mean ANY Government can do better than anything else is kill people and destroy property with a zeal that would make the most crazed seriel killer weep with envy.

I came home after almost being killed fighting a bunch of people I never heard of to the hatred of the people who sent me there to begin with.

I have the Republicans on one side trying to take my bong, tell me what God I have to worship, telling other people they are filth because of which adult they sleep with, etc

I have the Democrats taking my half my paycheck (when I can find a job), telling me that I am not responsable enough to have a gun to defend myself, that a bunch of deadbeats needed my money more than I did and in general acting like the people I had just got through killing.

Neither side gave a # about the common man other than as a vote and what you can do for them.

Arround the early 80s I discovered the Libertarians and thought this is the America that I grew up in and would die for, they will allow me to be what I DECIDE to be as long as I dont harm someone else in the process.

This was the "Code of the Hills" that I grew up with, mind your own business and dont take any # from anyone else, depend on yourself and your family, help your neighbors BUT they have no RIGHT to your property.

I could go own forever

But the short answer is I was never either party to begin with and if it werent for the Libertarians would not belong to any party

Originally posted by Amuk
previous post

Here Here!!!!!

Applause...

In school in 1971, I delivered newspapers each day describing Vietnam.
An English teacher, almost openly socialist, proposed a class project:

Plan and describe how to organize a community without money
and with foreign trade restricted exclusively to the collective.

Her agenda was to cultivate socialist thinking.
I spent days naively pondering how to do this,
and came to the conclusion it was not possible without:

1 some form of coercion against the "workers"
2 an authoritarian leadership to organize the "workers"
3 and, ultimately, differential living standards as rewards.

It did not help that my leisure time was spent on Robert Anson Heinlein,
but, by the time I graduated high school,
I had come to the conclusion that this socialist crap of
setting up a society where some uncorruptible 'central authority'
redistributed wealth for the benefit of 'the poor' (subservients)
was merely another version of what we labelled 'protection racket'.
A crime by any other name, the IRS is revealed as simply theft
gilded over in the garments of government.

So much for the socialist communists who call themselves Democrats.
Their only saving grace is that instead of 100% tax,
current taxation is merely 60% (count it - all of it, not just IRS payola).

I joined a fundamentalist Christian movement where I began to perceive
the same authoritarian 'control-freak' attitudes exhibited by socialists.
Fiscally conservative, the fundamentalists flourish on merely a
different label of central authority.

I escaped all that, and realized America is headed down a greased chute.

I became expatriate 14 years ago, as freedom and liberty are found
in many more places outside the U.S. than they are inside these days.

Even Singapore has more freedom than the U.S. since 9/11,
and other countries rank even higher.

You do not hear that inside the artificial news zone that is Amerika,
but that is because the political powers that be very carefully
tweak the media controls to deny this.

King George speaks of spreading the message of Liberty and Freedom,
brandishing with the Left hand what he pilfers with the Right.

You are less free now in Amerika than we were back in the 70's.
After the next election, if either Bush or Kerry win,
Amerikans will be little more than slaves.

[edit on 10/2/2004 by esther]

Originally posted by esther
But if Badnarik can't win the election, if it is truly only between Bush & Kerry in practice (not theory), then will I be just wasting my vote?

So much has ben written on this subject I could not even begin
� to do it justice except to say - vote who you want to be President.

Your vote for Kerry is wasted on someone who represents
� almost identical ideals and intents.
Bush v. Kerry? Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference

No Choice Between Bush, Kerry (Or Edwards)


And if you think the election is over, you are very mistaken:
The Accidental Candidate

Libs Tap Badnarik for Prez

Disputed & Close Elections - 1824



[edit on 2004-9-4 by Teknik]

I have been liberal before, but I was about 12 years old to 14 or so, and I got smoked on almost all my views by a Republican woman I met on a ski trip.

Well, that didn't make me a Republican, it was the reading (as I read huge amounts, and still do).

As I learned, I grew more and more conservative as I realized the nature of man could not be bred out or civilized, but to rather let people be free, and they will do right. Take away that responcibility, then you get people who don't care, and don't help, because there is always someone doing it for you whether you like it or not. Now-a-days it's all "That's not my job" and other cute "passing the buck" lines.

While in the Marine Corps Infantry, I officially aligned myself with the Republican Party to vote for both George Bushes.

The problem was, was that in all that time, I always saw that Republican Presidents do almost none of what the "platform" indicated, which is a bane to change in the direction these "Republicans" advertised.

Once I realized that both parties were empty money bags, presenting a carefully chosen lineup of candidates who have all shown loyalty to the PARTY rather than the COUNTRY, I found myself feeling generally lost. A conservative independant.

When I read about the Libertarian Party, I didn't get too far before I laughed them off as crap.

It wasn't until LoboMuk said I should give it another read, that I really got it all in.

That was it. A party that DID what they said they would. They had a practical platform that was DIFFICULT in execution, but would be a benifit in the long run.

I think that we are too far gone to really do too much. For example, the drinking age.

In Europe, the drinking age is low, but here it is 21. Should we choose to revert back to 18, the drunk driving and other alcohol related deaths etc, would increase drastically for a while, but then it would get better over time.

This is impossible in a country like America. We have such a strong taboo with things we "Aren't allowed to have". People tend to freak out when they get the chance to get what they want. Much like college freshmen, I think that's pretty self explanitory.

This is the problem with the rest of the laws, departments, etc.

But the fight is good and worthy. So let's fight it!

Born and raised a Democrat! That is exactly how it was for a child of politically conscious parents of the late 60s, early 70s. My dad was, and remains, a union loyalist, ACLU member and political activist. He is still of the opinion that Jimmy Carter was the most underappreciated president of the last 50 years (go figure).

And so it was for me as well, young democrats - volunteering to work for local, state and federal democratic campaigns - earth first - green peace. I was definitely my parent's child.

But it all changed in college. Suddenly the party of my youth and my parent's life was not the same democratic party it had once been. Truth is it probably hadn't been for a long time and I hadn't noticed. While the republicans had never represented the working man, somewhere along the line the democrats forgot them as well, especially over the last decade. Both parties IMO are choosing the extreme as their base and leaving the average joe to fend for themselves.

So I found the Libertarian party - a party for the working man, that embraces what is best about our country, supported by our constitution. Personal freedom coupled with personal responsiblity. What a simple and understated concept - a concept that hasn't been promoted since Kennedy's time. I look for these qualities in the candidates I decide to support regardless of their actual party affiliation. This presidential election, I find none of these qualities in either candidate and will put my support behind Badnarik.