Why is the LP so goddamn Socialist?

It’s not quite that simple. Just going to court at all is extremely expensive. Almost none of those lawsuits had any chance of winning; they simply drained the firearms manufacturers via legal fees. Sure, they can counter-sue, but that doesn’t always work and the system is largely unsympathetic.

Something had to change — perhaps reforming the court system would have been more appropriate.

I think this was GE, not Austin.

“Suffice it to say, there is no mention of any of that drug war / civil liberties stuff from our conservative-in-residence. I understand that sometimes it’s important to get a press release out quickly and it’s easy to overlook things when rushing. But Andrew’s already demonstrated rightward leanings makes me wonder if that’s really the explanation.”

Excellent observation my friend! However, letting the LP leadership and paid staff off the hook so easily as they were “rushing” to get the release out is definitely NOT called for. I know Starchild hasn’t done that, but many others might be lenient in such matters.

So thanks again Starchild for calling out the LP national press release corp for screwing it up yet again.

P.S. If my memory serves me, didn’t the newly reformed APRC (Advertising and Publications Review Committee) become reinstated to combat this sort of stuff?

George, how is Andrew Davis “the LP leadership”?

He’s not, but the leadership (1) gave him a position of authority and (2) allowed him to send out that crap.

I’m also with Peter Orvetti on the tone. It reads like something the Republicans would put out about a Democrat candidate. Nothing particularly deep or insightful about it, no sense of a larger libertarian worldview being communicated, just cheap “gotcha” points.

Much of the content, complete with faulting Biden for opposing drilling in ANWR and making English the national language, matches the tone. Adopting an official national language is most definitely *not* a libertarian position. And allowing oil companies to drill on government land in the Arctic, while not to my mind a bad thing and certainly not the environmental catastrophe that some hysterical elements on the left make it out to be, is one of the most overplayed and least consequential issues of the day. It offers no clearly obvious way in which to apply libertarian principles, and I see no reason why an LP spokesperson should be focusing on it.

By contrast, I seemed to recall Biden sponsoring some pretty awful anti-rave legislation that expanded the War on Drugs to allow the use of RICO laws to go after rave promoters for people taking drugs at their parties. A quick web search revealed that the “RAVE Act” was the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Biden’s awful record on drugs and civil liberties. According to blogger Jacob Grier:

“Biden has sponsored more damaging drug war legislation than any Democrat in Congress. Hate the way federal prosecutors use RICO laws to take aim at drug offenders? Thank Biden. How about the abomination that is federal asset forfeiture laws? Thank Biden. Think federal prosecutors have too much power in drug cases? Thank Biden. Think the title of a “Drug Czar” is sanctimonious and silly? Thank Biden, who helped create the position (and still considers it an accomplishment worth boasting about). Tired of the ridiculous steroids hearings in Congress? thank Biden, who led the effort to make steroids a Schedule 3 drug, and has been among the blowhardiest of the blowhards when it comes to sports and performance enhancing drugs. Biden voted in favor of using international development aid for drug control (think plan Columbia, plan Afghanistan, and other meddling anti-drug efforts that have only fostered loathing of America, backlash, and unintended consequences).”

There’s more on Biden from Grier that’s worth reading which I won’t recopy here — see http://www.jacobgrier.com/blog/archives/1311.html.

Suffice it to say, there is no mention of any of that drug war / civil liberties stuff from our conservative-in-residence. I understand that sometimes it’s important to get a press release out quickly and it’s easy to overlook things when rushing. But Andrew’s already demonstrated rightward leanings makes me wonder if that’s really the explanation.

In any case, if this is the best we can do, well, sometimes never *is* better than late. If I’d been told ten years ago that the 2008 LP leadership would make me nostalgic for that of the Harry Browne era, I’m not sure I would’ve had the stomach to stick around this long. So far have we fallen as a party.

The main thing that keeps me here is reminding myself how relatively few people it would still take to completely turn the LP around and have it once again be a radical, uncompromising, insightful voice for freedom. But the list of things we’re going to need to apologize for and dissociate ourselves from, if and when that day comes, keeps getting longer.