Further Thoughts on "Divided They Fail"

Suppose you see yourself as a hard-core libertarian. Who would you rather win an election: a pro-gay marriage candidate who wants to nuke Iran and invade the Sudan, or an anti-gay marriage candidate who wants to end undeclared wars and bring the troops home? To me, the answer is clear: I want peace, liberty, and legal equality, but peace must come first.

Likewise, I want to get rid of the national oppressor before the local oppressor, because the national oppressor oppresses more people. In elections, would prefer Libertarian Party candidates first, Constitution Party candidates second, and nobody else third, because of this.

What sparked my piece "Divided They Fail" was the fact that Libertarian Party members were embarrassed and angry that Mary Ruwart, seeking the Party's nomination for President, takes the libertarian position on child sex and child pornography.

It's as if Ruwart was disqualified as a spokesperson for libertarian principles - which is essentially what an LP Presidential candidate is supposed to be - because she held to libertarian principles even in a particularly tough and controversial case. It made me, like this commenter G.E. at Third Party Watch, think that I'd rather vote for the Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin and know I'm getting a "consistent Constitutionalist" than support an LP candidate who somehow draws the best line between aiming to be principled and aiming to please.

The LP's problem is that it tries to do two things. First, it tries to be ideological, and recruit individuals willing to "certify in writing that they oppose the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals." Second, it tries be a political party dedicated to shrinking the size of government - the federal government first and foremost. It can do both, but it can't succeed at both.

• If the LP is to be radical and hard-core, its leader should be a consistent libertarian. Of course, this won't win many votes or lead to long-term growth, which makes one wonder if the Libertarian Party as an outreach tool was a good idea whose time has passed in the Internet Age.

• If the LP's purpose is to win elections and take power on a small-government platform, well of course Ruwart's position on child porn won't help. But if there are differences of opinion on this issue, then there will definitely be differences on major issues as well. Libertarians will differ on specific solutions and the next steps to take. One says sales taxes are worse than income taxes, another says the opposite. Person A says get rid of the welfare state first and then immigration laws, Person B says says the order of what gets repealed first doesn't matter. The one will accuse the other of "betraying" libertarianism.

I respect LP members who want to remain hard-core. It just seems to me that those who would agree with the hard-core position the most will take it to the logical conclusion of not voting and not participating in party politics at all. It is very conceivable that a person could move from frustrated Republican or frustrated Democrat, to being drawn to the Libertarian Party message, to getting deeper and deeper into the libertarian philosophy, to becoming a non-voting anarchist - all within a two-year election cycle. Guess what - the Libertarian Party would have done its job! All too well, in fact - it never does get this person's vote. I respect the hard-core line, but I would suggest building agorist activist organizations and educational institutions would be a better use of their time than campaigning in elections. If nothing else, ballot access laws make their efforts inefficient at best. The sheer irony of a "libertarian" party trying to win power is another drawback. But if that's how some hard-core libertarians want to spend their time and money, I respect that.

I have a bigger problem respecting LP members who a) condemn Mary Ruwart, and/or b) supported Ron Paul, but would never consider an alliance with Constitution Party members. (For the record: I'm not a current LP member, I agree with Ruwart, and I supported Ron Paul.) They won't forgive Ruwart for her consistency, they will forgive Ron Paul for his deviations, but they'll write off the CP as theocrats - even though their differences with libertarianism are in many of the the same areas Ron Paul deviates from it.

I'm not sure what the problem is. The CP opposes abortion because, supposedly, they're religious nutjobs, whereas Ron Paul and pro-life libertarians have a different but principled view of when human rights begin. The CP doesn't believe the First Amendment applies to the states because, supposedly, they're theocrats, whereas Ron Paul - who has sponsored legislation expressing this view - just has an unorthodox but logical interpretation of the Constitution. (For the record, I agree with Paul's view: if the First Amendment was meant to apply to the states, either it or the Fourteenth Amendment would have said so explicitly.)

I think the objections are special pleading. I think libertarians resent the paleoconservative's finger-wagging condescension toward libertarianism, and I think paleoconservatives resent the libertarian's stridency and abstractions. Both sides (except the most hard-core of each) give Ron Paul a pass, and are willing to disagree with him on a few points and still love him, but they won't support anyone else who could bridge this divide.

I'm not asking members of either party to set aside their principles. I'm asking them instead to come together and form a party based on their many points of agreement.

I'm calling for a national party focused strictly on the national issue of the size, scope, and powers of the federal government. Statewide and locally, there may be LP candidates who want legal casinos in the state and strip clubs in the county, and CP candidate who want both banned. Fine - but they can all sign on to a national agenda of downsizing the size, scope, and power of the federal government:

• bring the troops home; no entangling alliances; only Congressionally-declared wars from now on;
• no ceding of legislative, executive, or judicial authority to international organizations;
  
• repeal post-9/11 curbs on civil liberties; restore crime control as a state function; defend the Second Amendment;
  
• cut spending across the board; abolish unconstitutional departments and programs such as the Department of Education;
• deregulate and desubsidize the energy industry;
• work toward a free market in health care;
• simplify the tax code and cut taxes;
• restore a Constitutional money system.
  

Allow differences on these issues:

• the specifics of tax reform;
  
• immigration restrictions;
• tariffs and trade;
• the role of Congress and the federal judiciary on First and Fourteenth Amendment issues pertaining to state and local laws;
• state and local controversies.
  

The goal of downsizing the federal government are the same in both the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. There, and only there, can they and should they work together. Perhaps a national platform could be a new "contract with America" based on points of agreement that could be signed by all party candidates. They can run against each other in primaries emphasizing issues where the platform allows for differences. But if and when elected, they will support the contract they had singed onto.

So everyone gets to keep their principles and ideology, while they support a national party that is dedicated to a smaller federal government but doesn't advance a particular ideology. Say what you will about Republicans and Democrats, but they swallow both their principles and their pride to vote for candidates who differ with them on major issues. Indeed, they do this all the time. Why can't advocates of small government do the same, especially if their differences are minor or technical?

Maybe for the same reason we never succeed: most of us who want small government are driven by principle, not power - and although we are all principled, we continually disagree on which principles. So even when we're in agreement 80% of the time, we go nowhere because those who should be our strongest allies are instead our bitterest enemies.

Perhaps non-voting anarchists and spiritual gurus were right all along: we will never achieve freedom through politics.

Divided They Fail

My latest at the Partial Observer, wondering "If they both support Ron Paul, why don't the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party merge?" Excerpt:

I don't know if it was ever strategically sound to promote philosophical principles through a political party. Principles, to remain principles, must be untarnished, whereas politics works through compromise, which means tarnishing principles. In any case, the Internet has made the dissemination of libertarian principles, and education in the libertarian philosophy, much easier than it used to be. If the Libertarian Party exists to educate, I don't know if that is necessary anymore. If anything, it could lead people who take the philosophy far enough to see the contradiction of the LP's own existence.

But if the purpose of the party is to win elections and govern, it would do well to disband or change its name to something more generic and non-philosophical. It could then do a better job of advancing libertarian ends without allowing the various, necessary and inevitable compromises to besmirch the libertarian philosophy. This is where joining together with the Constitution Party, Ron Paul Republicans, and others come in. If the immediate and primary goal is to downsize the federal government, the various groups that support this goal can no longer be divided against themselves.

Keyes Loses Yet Again

I can't believe it was only eight years ago that I voted for Alan Keyes in the Illinois Republican Presidential Primary. Not that I regret it; he was clearly smarter and less war-mongering than McCain and more explicitly for smaller government than George W. Bush. But I didn't know just how pathetic his act would become. After the Illinois GOP dumped its Senatorial nominee for Senate in 2004 over a personal non-scandal, they chose Keyes, of all people, to move in from out-of-state and get obliterated by Barack Obama.

Not getting the hint that his message was relevant in 1996-2000 but no longer, Keyes entered the GOP race in 2007, only to find out that Ron Paul already had part of his message (the good parts) and Huckabee the rest (the stupid, bad parts). Now, this pro-war neo-conservative tried to get the nomination of the Constitution Party - which has always been anti-war and isolationist. Fortunately, the CP has backed away from Keyes, who probably has yet to figure out that name recognition doesn't serve you if you are a laughingstock.

The CP nominated its 2004 VP nominee, Chuck Baldwin, instead. I have read several of Baldwin's columns and agree with a lot of them. And he has been a Ron Paul supporter. I hope all conservatives, and especially, Ron Paul supporters, unwilling to vote Libertarian will vote for Baldwin. Matthew Roberts writes, "as Chilton Williamson Jr. argues in his recent article “Time for a Multi-Party System,” there could be long-term gains (such as a “multiplicity of parties, representing a multiplicity of interests") in abandoning the two major parties, which have become a “broad and contradictory coalition of factions.” (Better said than done, but a sizeable defection is a start.)"

Constitution Party on Ron Paul

From the Constitution Party website:

The Constitution Party presidential candidate will be selected at its convention in the spring of 2008. We can’t say for sure what will be decided by the convention delegates, but as the party who puts principle above party loyalty, it seems that in the unlikely event that Doctor No [Ron Paul] is able to capture the Republican nomination, we would stand behind him 100%.

The dilemma we have is that we cannot sit around and wait to see what the Republicans are going to do but must build the ark that true Constitutionalists can find refuge on when it dawns on them that the Republican and Democrat parties will let them drown. To that end we must work to secure ballot access in all 50 states NOW and find a candidate who can carry our principles into a presidential campaign which will more than likely find a left-of-center candidate carrying the Republican mantle.

If the Grand Old Party does choose to return to its conservative ideals by supporting Congressman Paul, then there will be ample opportunity to throw our support behind him should our delegates so decide. If he does not win the GOP nomination we will have done much of the work to gain the ballot lines necessary to field a candidate who shares our values and who will govern constitutionally. That candidate could be Ron Paul should he decide to continue his race by seeking the Constitution Party nomination.

This is quite a dilemma. By the time the Republican primaries are finished thanks to what will be the most vicious and dishonest smear campaign in the history of the Republic (after the strategy of ignoring him had failed), Ron Paul will still have a much larger following and greater name recognition then than he does in this early stage of the campaign. Paul could probably launch an independent or third-party bid and get at least 10% of the popular vote and probably a lot more. If Ron Paul doesn't win the Republican nomination but decides to continue in the race, options include:

- Unity 08; see my column on it here.
- An independent run or creating a new third party, provided it gets tacit endorsement from the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party in that they don't nominate their own candidates. But if Paul runs as an independent, the ballot-access chances of both parties are hurt. But his pro-peace, pro-civil liberties message will also be effective outreach to many on the Left. The ends of both the LP and CP would be advanced, however imperfectly, by an independent Paul run, even if it does institutional damage to those parties.
- seeking the nomination of either the CP or the LP, but not both. This will be a bonanza for the party he chooses, as it would guarantee ballot access for that party in every state. Then again, he isn't a "pure" Constitution Party guy as he's a federalist on the abortion question and rejects protective tariffs, which the CP seems to favor. And he's an even less "pure" Libertarian, as he is more federalist than individualist on "moral" issues, more nationalist than laissez-faire on immigration, and favors national sovereignty over "free trade agreements."
- seeking the nomination of both parties. This could lead to conflicts and confusion on state ballot laws, and perhaps competition between the parties as to who will Paul represent in a particular state.

Time will tell. But it brings me joy to even speculate about it. The Ron Paul grassroots so far has proven to be larger, more enthusiastic, and better organized than I had anticipated, so that his campaign at this point is now more good news than bad, with greater reasons for optimism now than when it started.

And, as I said then, it's better for Ron Paul to run than for everyone to wonder what might have been. Because now, I'm wondering about what might be, which is more fun than trying to speculate which Libertarian candidate has the best chance to win half a million votes.