The reproduction of the bailout application was neat info, but not focused enough on action or recruitment.

You are correct, that the LP must exist without political linearity; but to do that, the current lopsidedness needs to be balanced.

We want all lovers of liberty to join the LP and become candidates and volunteers, whether they come from a rightward tilt or a leftward one.

So will you help out at one of the outreach-to-the-left tables?

Incidentally, there is nothing preventing you from procuring materials for such outreach along the lines you prefer. The LP’s drug policy brochure sold at LPStuff.com is actually pretty good, for example.

And nothing would stop you (or your local party) from periodically following up with any new contacts you collect yourself — and when doing so, you can stress the Libertarian Party’s position on _x_.

I agree that there is way too much focus on pocketbook issues on the website; and I also agree that there is a huge amount of reluctance on the part of some libertarians to ever utter a word about eliminating the government’s war on porn, police excess, abolishing drug prohibition, open immigration, and all other personal choices the government has stuck its nose into in the past century. I also think that there are way too many “libertarians” who are all too willing to criticize those who are interested in these issues as just being a bunch of potheads who just want cheaper drugs.

But once again, to combat narrow-mindedness, we must find small-government progressivesa and get them hooked up with the LP so we can elect a more balanced LNC at the next convention.

Will you help?

They’re opening a window that has been shut pretty tight by a small crack.

We either use the opportunity to try to open the crack up a little more, or it shuts again.

The LP National is helping to perpetuate the myth that libertarians are nothing but selfish greedheads with their focus of published issues. Again, where is their adamant support for legalisation of all drugs, including manufacturing and sales. America’s War On Drugs has destroyed the stability of several nations in the Americas. It is presently the cause of the inordinate amount of violence in Mexico, and the reason that Mexican-based criminal organisations have gained a foothold in over 200 American cities. The War On Drugs is used as a rationale for the theft of Natural Liberty. This is a significant contemporary problem. It is also a foundational platform plank for the LP. So why isn’t there any support for ending the drug war found on the entry pages to lp.org’s different sections? Why is The Independent Institute a better proponent of libertarianism than is the LP National?

Ivan Eland, “How to Combat Mexican Drug Cartels-Legalize Their Activities“, The Independent Institute, April 6, 2009

http://accountabilitynowpac.com/

#19 And what would TR be? I don’t really like defining people anymore, but if I had too then I would say that he was somewhat of a centrist but leaned statist, but even those are way too broad of strokes with a paintbrush. I guess a more bellicose John McCain is the best way to put it.

Something is better than nothing.

The alternative is that they don’t show up and make no effort until we get a different LNC and LPHQ; but why would we (in this regard), without any effort to recruit from the left first?

You are correct that a lot of groundwork has to be laid here, but it should start now; better late than never.

The LP should be above the filthy and distorted model of a bipolar polity. It should not be associated with either side, existing without it.

The LP says they are going to pay entry fees and set-up tables at liberal/left conventions. What exactly are they bringing to the table other than a good time and refreshments for their representatives? Look at the LP’s website homepage presently. There is not one of the many official LP Platform planks that would naturally attract left/liberal persons even given short notice on it. The same goes for the front page of their blogs and press releases. The reach-out “initiative” is doomed for massive failure, because of this.

The LP should first begin a policy of publishing strong positions supporting the Official LP Statement of Principles; Articles 1.0 – 1.6, and Articles 3.0 – 3.7. You cannot attract liberal/left persons with glowing posts about Wayne Root being interviewed by Michael Savage, or by shouting “Obomination” to the highest rafters. You do this by first showing that libertarianism supports individual liberties other than being at liberty to amass personal fortune, and then prove that a essential pat of individual liberty must include the economic side. Let me know when the LP National starts posting unequivocal support on the website for open immigration, complete decriminalisation of all drug prohibitions, and the proposition that no rights should be abridged based on sex, wealth, race, color, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation.

Let me know when the LP National quits dancing with the absurd “states’ rights” rationalisation for the theft of liberty. If it is a theft of liberty when done by the federal government, it is still a theft of liberty when done by an individual state.

TR had toyed with many progressive ideas, and was more liberal than his predecessor McKinley, especially in being influenced by muckraking accounts(I use the term in a neutral manner). However, TR was very much the egotist when it came to new ideas. While he adopted new ideas from others, the implementation could only be done by his hand. While his behavior to monopoly and labor was often good, it sometimes is like McCain and how he will pick an enemy.

If we totally take out his Bull Moose run, several things discount his more libertarian side. He was a president who meddled in every little thing he could. His trust-busting was less than that of Taft; in the end, he sought more to tame business to be subservient to government. His hawkism was a constant discounting his cordial behavior with Japan, whether is was manhandling Colombia, the Roosevelt Corrollary, the Philippines, or WWI. One may discount his civil rights positions on the time; however, his treatment and ostracization of anarchists was appalling, especially right after McKinley’s assassination. This is contrasted with Peter Altgeld, the fellow Progressive. Oh, and not to mention his endorsing the famed legislation of Aldritch in 1908 that began leading to the Federal Reserve.

Taft wasn’t so much a conservative as he made the wrong decisions with his administration. First in endorsing the Aldrich Tariff, then the Pinchot-Ballinger Tariff. He actually busted more trusts than TR, who was posturing. However, Taft was in the end thrown into the Old Guard because they controlled the party mechanisms that were inherited from Roosevelt. Just as we see a convention steamroller today, it existed back then. Now that Taft was the president, the party apparatus was under him. Roosevelt became insurgent.

It was more the circumstances that made Roosevelt the Progressive crusader and Taft the Old Guard conservative.

Note, I am not saying these efforts to work with the left are bad either. I don’t know where you got that; I just disagree with your premise that TR was a left-libertarian.

Another thing we are doing here in Augusta during the summer – through the Augusta libertarian Meetup Group rather than the LP/CSRA – is a “Legalize Freedom Music Festival”. It should draw people from all spectrums of political color wheels (is that even a valid metaphor?) though most of the entertainers and presenters will be hardcore libertarian/anarchists.