Like Idaho isn’t suffering enough embarrassment because it’s home to a band of neo-Nazis and its previous claim to fame was that it was good at growing potatoes.
Kee-hrist. Leave 'em alone.
Waaaaaaaait a minute … they want to convince one State to cancel its laws against DRUGS?! What the hell difference is that going to make?! The anti-drug laws at the Federal level would still be in force!
Sure, the federal laws would still be in place, but there’d be a lot less enforcement. Heck, New Hampshire cops have already told me in no uncertain terms that they just don’t enforce certain firearm laws.
Half of me is cheering them on, knowing that when they fail, there’ll be heaps of ammunition to fire in all those silly libertarian threads that keep coming up.
But mostly, I just feel sorry for Idaho. They don’t deserve this.
Fly in the ointment. C’our d’Alene and the surrounding area is oftimes known as “Blue Heaven” for the prevalence of retired police officers gathering there to live. Might be a teensy problem.
Beyond that, I want to go on record as whole-heartedly favoring the notion of all the Libertarians going somewhere. Anywhere. So long as its elsewhere.
Not Minnesota. Too cold. You’d hate it. Terribly, terribly cold. Around here, when they say “Get down!” they mean you’re not dressed warmly enough, and will die. Idaho is nice. Lots of rugged individualists, and rugged women. Yes, I definitely favor Idaho. For them.
Is there someplace I can send a donation?
“Sure, the federal laws would still be in place, but there’d be a lot less enforcement. Heck, New Hampshire cops have already told me in no uncertain terms that they just don’t enforce certain firearm laws.”
Are those FEDERAL laws? Ask the CA pot growers about this. CA passed a medicinal marijuana law, but the fed still come in and bust people. (Not that I know about this from personal experience…)
John Mace: what he’s saying is that local law enforcement won’t enforce federal laws. Sure, the FBI/DEA/etc can still pursue the local pot grower, but the local and state authorities won’t. As a practical matter, that reduces the level of enforcement and thus reduces the chances of an individual grower from being prosecuted, particularly if the grower isn’t “big-time” enough to warrant the feds expending resources on him.
My favorite comment on libertarians cam from the book “The Irony of Democracy” Dye and Ziegler, which posited that, since conservatives favor local rights over government rights, and Libertarians promote individual rights uber alles, Libertarians actually constitute a part of the extreme right wing…
Let’s see - I see nothing at all improper about a bunch of like-minded people moving together in one place and later voting in elections. It’s not like they’re going to rent an apartment and claim 500 people live there to screw up some small-town mayoral race through a hole in the residency laws, they’re going to actually live in the state and vote there.
This sounds more like a stunt than a real plan of action; how many jobs will there be in Idaho for these activists? How many people are really going to pull up their roots and move to another state for this project? I wouldn’t bet on this working, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume they’ll get enough people to completely dominate elections. What then?
I think it will just highlight that the Libertarian Party does not have a real electable platform, and we’ll see that most people don’t advocate the sort of extreme Libertarianism that you typically see on message boards. I mean, look at the quote in the OP: “the Free State Project… in hopes of canceling laws against drugs, prostitution, guns and other individual liberties” Sounds good right? But let’s look at some details, which most Libertarians hate to do.
A Quick look at the NRA’s summary of Idaho’sgun laws shows us that Idaho is not quite like New York or California on guns; which of Idaho’s gun laws are these activists going to work to recind? Idaho’s laws pretty much only limit minors possessing/owning firearms and require a shall-issue permit for concealed carry. I don’t think that Vermont carry rather than a $10 shall-issue permit would make that big of a difference, and I wouldn’t be suprised if most Libertarians hesitate to allow unlimited arming of kids in practice. So, I don’t see that they’re going to make much difference in gun laws, and the extreme wing will probably split the group over the issue of arming kids.
Vague promises of sweeping reform with no specifics aren’t going to work should the Libertarians take control. The LP platform on crime, for example, states that the LP favors making criminals pay restitution for their crimes to victims. It does not, however, explain what the LP would change about the present system, where in all 50 states (Dewey can correct me if I’m wrong on this) victims can file a civil suit against criminals to recover damages from a crime. Since these activists aren’t willing to state what exactly they’ll be changing in the state laws now, I don’t see how they’d remain a unified group once they get into power and start arguing over specifics.
And, of course, pundits on both sides will tend to dismiss most of the experiment on the basis that Federal laws prevented the worst problems and/or benefits of the expermint.
Yeah, the anti-drug and anti-gun laws in Idaho are hardly any more restrictive than the anti-drug and anti-gun laws at the Federal level.
However, anti-prostitution and anti-gambling laws are an entirely different kettle of consensual fish. A bunch of guys moving into Idaho could have a significant impact on such laws.
This is correct as a general proposition, though it depends on what the crime is. Of course, the real problem is that most criminals are judgment-proof – they don’t have any money. Ya can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.
Sounds good to me… if they make things better, I can drive 40 minutes to Coeur D’Alene for a night of drugs, gambling, and prostitution; if not, I’m still safe on this side of the border.
One problem I can forsee is cigarette smuggling. We already have cops waiting at the state line to catch folks who buy cartons in Idaho (where cigarette taxes are low), then sell them here. Libertarians are opposed to sin taxes, right? Lower cigarette prices in Idaho means more smuggling, which means more of our cops wasting their time at the state line.
Though it could be a good thing… more cops at the state line means fewer cops here in town to pull me over for speeding.
Tracer, are you really sure that attempting to amend the State Constitution would be a good project for these guys to spend their energy on? That is where the gambling restriction is in Idaho. And I can’t see people moving from all across the country just to legalize streetwalkers, much less getting the enthusiastic support of their new neighbors for the project.
Aww heck, we’ll take 'em. Hopefully they bring enough money to spend in our failing towns, find out that there isn’t any work for them here and that it really can snow 12-14 feet occasionally, and they’ll head back to where they came from.
As mentioned earlier, it’s not like the idea hasn’t been tried before with the white supremisist movement. It failed, just like the Libertarian movement will because of dissention in the ranks and the tenacity of the local public.
For examples of past failures, google on “Almost Heaven”, “Ayrian Nations”, and for an example in Oregon, try “Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Antelope”.
I used to think that the Libertarians were just extreme right wingers who wanted to smoke pot. Then I realised that Republicans are Libertarians who just want to tell everyone what to do. It made things a lot easier to understand.
The Libertarians actually are the right wing.
If they pick Idaho they will have to match our current population person for person. That’s the only way they can out vote us. As one of the handful of Democrats in this state I can tell you nearly all elections belong to the Republicans.
Also they better bring jobs with them. There aren’t any here. I’m a trained professional (Library Cataloger) with 22 years of experience, and my wages are in the bottom three percent in the country.
Of course if they want to fight the migrants and teenagers for the minimum wage jobs, such as weeding beets and moving water pipes, they’re welcome to try.
Oh! I forgot to add. The minute they start talking about eliminating farm subsidies they dead in the water.
Well, I think the idea of a group moving en masse to an area to try to prove something is kind of silly, even being philosophically a libertarian myself.
Someone mentioned a potential ‘split’ in the LP, well thats been going on for quite some time; the poster who labeled libertarians who dont approach the subject from a purely moralistic (and thus artificial) view as ‘pragmatists’ being a case in point.
Interesting how most of the posts deal with nothing more than drug/prostitution laws, and the LPs attitudes towards the same. Yet the LPs attitude about drugs etc is just a consequence of the main issue; individual freedom.
I disagree that most americans are anti-LP; I think most americans are libertarians to an extent. For the past 40 or so years, the presidency and congress has been split between the two parties most of the time; we play them off each other. Take an economically conservative democrat and a socially liberal republican and you basically have a libertarian. And you basically have a majority of people in this country. I think most americans wouldnt welcome complete control for very long by either main party; because both of the main parties want to restrict individual freedom and choice in one way or another, whether its economically or morally or both.
If the LP is anything, it is at least consistant, which niether of the two main parties can claim to be. I mean, its silly to say you dont believe in evolution and then go on to say you want a free market so that the best providers of goods and services will survive. Its also silly to say you dont want someones religous beliefs shoved down your throat and then go on to say the government (i.e your nieghbors) should provide this that and the other thing. Or to claim to support ending world hunger one day but vote for price supports for farmers the next day. Its rediculous.
As for individuals being the base unit of everything, well you cant claim otherwise without bringing some sort of psuedo religous belief into it. A society is nothing more than a collection of individuals; to claim it is something more or seperate than that is to claim something that, like God, cannot be empirically demonstrated or tested. Like God, there is no need to prove the non-existance; the lack of ability to prove the existance is all one needs to know.
Another inconsistancy is to claim that individuals are free to choose the values they wish to live by, and then support democracy as a means to achieve this. If you are free to go into a voting booth and determine the values your nieghbors are going to live by, then your neighbors are not free to choose the values they are going to live by; and niether are you. You cant have it both ways, its like trying to combine -1 and 1. Either everyone is free to determine how they live their lives, or no one is, and it is left up to a vote by your nieghbors eligible to do so or a dictate by a king or determination of a council or whatever.
Having said all that, while for years I was a registered libertarian, I am not any longer. I am what one poster would refer to as a ‘pragmatist’. I take that as a compliment; the alternative is to be a fundamentalist, and I have far too much self respect to ever be that. Unfortunately there are far too many in the LP who live in la la land. In the economic sphere, they rightfully state that, in a free society, one of the purposes of government is to protect the free market, and so the government should not be limiting the market. However, its not just the government that wants to limit the market.
A free market is in many ways unnatural; humans, like all organisms, will strive to get the most benefit from the least amount of energy expenditure. Thats pragmatic, and if recognizing reality is pragmatism, then Im guilty and happy to be so. The free market is not just something that needs to be protected, its something that needs to be enforced. For a free market to exist, a certain amount of regulation must be present. In my experience, many in the LP seem not to grasp that.
If the modern day LP was around at the time of the creation of the US constitution, the fundamentalists would have held out for the south renouncing slavery completely, rather than take the pragmatic way of building legal challenges to slavery within the document itself, as happened. And so the US constitution would never have come about and we may not be posting here.
Along the same lines, its just silly to harp on about something as silly as getting rid of the minimum wage when the mimimum wage itself is only necessary because of structural inequities; get rid of the inequities and you dont need to get rid of the minimum wage, it will become as anachronistic as anti-spitting on the sidewalk laws.
Making headway is more important than being ‘right’ and getting nowhere.
Well, I think the idea of a group moving en masse to an area to try to prove something is kind of silly, even being philosophically a libertarian myself.
Someone mentioned a potential ‘split’ in the LP, well thats been going on for quite some time; the poster who labeled libertarians who dont approach the subject from a purely moralistic (and thus artificial) view as ‘pragmatists’ being a case in point.
Interesting how most of the posts deal with nothing more than drug/prostitution laws, and the LPs attitudes towards the same. Yet the LPs attitude about drugs etc is just a consequence of the main issue; individual freedom.
I disagree that most americans are anti-LP; I think most americans are libertarians to an extent. For the past 40 or so years, the presidency and congress has been split between the two parties most of the time; we play them off each other. Take an economically conservative democrat and a socially liberal republican and you basically have a libertarian. And you basically have a majority of people in this country. I think most americans wouldnt welcome complete control for very long by either main party; because both of the main parties want to restrict individual freedom and choice in one way or another, whether its economically or morally or both.
If the LP is anything, it is at least consistant, which niether of the two main parties can claim to be. I mean, its silly to say you dont believe in evolution and then go on to say you want a free market so that the best providers of goods and services will survive. Its also silly to say you dont want someones religous beliefs shoved down your throat and then go on to say the government (i.e your nieghbors) should provide this that and the other thing. Or to claim to support ending world hunger one day but vote for price supports for farmers the next day. Its rediculous.
As for individuals being the base unit of everything, well you cant claim otherwise without bringing some sort of psuedo religous belief into it. A society is nothing more than a collection of individuals; to claim it is something more or seperate than that is to claim something that, like God, cannot be empirically demonstrated or tested. Like God, there is no need to prove the non-existance; the lack of ability to prove the existance is all one needs to know.
Another inconsistancy is to claim that individuals are free to choose the values they wish to live by, and then support democracy as a means to achieve this. If you are free to go into a voting booth and determine the values your nieghbors are going to live by, then your neighbors are not free to choose the values they are going to live by; and niether are you. You cant have it both ways, its like trying to combine -1 and 1. Either everyone is free to determine how they live their lives, or no one is, and it is left up to a vote by your nieghbors eligible to do so or a dictate by a king or determination of a council or whatever.
Having said all that, while for years I was a registered libertarian, I am not any longer. I am what one poster would refer to as a ‘pragmatist’. I take that as a compliment; the alternative is to be a fundamentalist, and I have far too much self respect to ever be that. Unfortunately there are far too many in the LP who live in la la land. In the economic sphere, they rightfully state that, in a free society, one of the purposes of government is to protect the free market, and so the government should not be limiting the market. However, its not just the government that wants to limit the market.
A free market is in many ways unnatural; humans, like all organisms, will strive to get the most benefit from the least amount of energy expenditure. Thats pragmatic, and if recognizing reality is pragmatism, then Im guilty and happy to be so. The free market is not just something that needs to be protected, its something that needs to be enforced. For a free market to exist, a certain amount of regulation must be present. In my experience, many in the LP seem not to grasp that.
If the modern day LP was around at the time of the creation of the US constitution, the fundamentalists would have held out for the south renouncing slavery completely, rather than take the pragmatic way of building legal challenges to slavery within the document itself, as happened. And so the US constitution would never have come about and we may not be posting here.
Along the same lines, its just silly to harp on about something as silly as getting rid of the minimum wage when the mimimum wage itself is only necessary because of structural inequities; get rid of the inequities and you dont need to get rid of the minimum wage, it will become as anachronistic as anti-spitting on the sidewalk laws.
Making headway is more important than being ‘right’ and getting nowhere.
sorry for the double; tried to edit/delete but it wouldnt let me.