10 responses so far ↓

• 1 HumbleTravis // Sep 24, 2008 at 8:41 pm

  Thanks for posting this – I consider these differences more important than the disputes over the differences in the LP & CP platforms.

• 2 Trent Hill // Sep 24, 2008 at 9:01 pm

  Yea,this is a good article. Contrasting positions of Paul and Baldwin are good. Contrasting Paul and the CP platform is…pointless. He didnt endorse the CP, he endorsed Baldwin.

• 3 G.E. // Sep 24, 2008 at 9:03 pm

  You know I wrote it, right, Trent?

  Check my archive at that site for more good stuff!

• 4 Trent Hill // Sep 24, 2008 at 9:31 pm

  Nope, sure didnt.

  Now I see why people pay you to write.

  I just need to figure out why people pay ME…

• 5 paulie cannoli // Sep 24, 2008 at 9:54 pm

  I need to figure out why they don’t pay me.

• 6 rdupuy // Sep 25, 2008 at 12:01 am

  Now we will see how much Ron Paul’s endorsement is worth.

  I expect its a net positive. But the CP is so at odds with Libertarian philosophy, that if Ron Paul does convince Libertarians to take over this party, its good news and bad news.

  I would imagine that current leadership would be out, the platform rewritten, by 2012.

  Chuck might find he’s now got too much of a good thing.

• 7 Trent Hill // Sep 25, 2008 at 12:07 am

  rdupuy,

  If libertarians of the Ron Paul stripe took over the CP–it’d be a great thing. They’d find themselves fully welcomed by the members in PA, CT, LA, TX, ID, CA, and NV–and I suspect this would constitute a majority. The conservative non-constitutionalists based out of most other states would likely just cut off their financial investments and ballot access would suffer seriously. Still–for Ron Paul-types to fully takeover the Constitution Party would be fitting.

• 8 G.E. // Sep 25, 2008 at 12:11 am

  hmmmm….

  I don’t see this in the offing, though.

  Perhaps if we were invited by whatever contingent of anti-protectionist, neutral on gays, less hawkish on immigration constitutionalists exists, we’d give it a go. But after seeing a neocon takeover of our own party, I don’t think we want to do the same to the CP, which has every right in the world to advance anti-capitalism and social puritanism.

• 9 Trent Hill // Sep 25, 2008 at 12:19 am

  GE,

  It has every right,so long as it delegates can defend said positions.

  If you are looking for an invitation–I’v got friends who can extend it formally. If I thought the CP was worth saving, I’d have initiated said invasion long ago–it would have been easy. Stacking the deck in FL, GA, MS, MI, IL, and several others could have been accomplished very easily. Add that to the already liberty-loving minorities in TX, NV, CA (the non-Noonan faction), ID and elsewhere–and that ship is sunk.

  Fortunately, I dont think its a path worth walking. It could be done, and easily, but to what end? At the end of it all, you’d have a smaller base, a competeing party made up of the former non-constitutionalists, no financial backing, and a party born in fire—not exactly a great starting point.

• 10 Steve LaBianca // Sep 25, 2008 at 10:16 am

  Though the LP platform is better than the CP platform on “free trade”, Bob Barr is nearly as much of a lightweight on economics as Baldwin.
  If we bring in W.A.R., we add another mental midget on economics (W.A.R. stated on a radio interview that he supported a fiat money standard and a Gold standard . . . obviously he was coached to say the “terms”, but has no idea what either standard encompasses)

  Barr, as a nearly lifelong government employee U.S. attorney and CIA) has spent neither the time or effort to learn economics . . and why should he have? He was a part of the government machine. Free market economics and the market is the antidote to government action, of which Barr has been a part of most of his adult life.

Leave a Comment