I registered Libertarian this year because I felt the Dems and Reps need a more direct challenge than they get from people just registering independent, which I always had done before.
I’m also four-square behind the libertarian philosophy…well, 3.25-square behind it anyway.
So what’s the deal with this party? Why are there so many nut cases? I mean come on, now, Lyndon Larouche? Who are we kidding?
Is it beacause all the good people who could build the party into something effective are drawn, by their hopes of actually being elected and accomplishing something, into one of the other parties? This would leave us with unmoderated extremists, I guess.
My roommate thinks there is something in the philosophy itself that makes adherents disorganized and, well, flaky. She’s pretty socialist, though, so I tend to take that with a grain of salt. Is she right?
Well, we will assume this gets moved (it hasn’t been at the time of this writing).
I think there is something to what your roommate has said, I think it is this:
The philosophy is very simple.
This is very appealing to flakes and extremists, and many other people who are consciously or unconsciously rejecting the complexity of political reality in favor of something they can actually understand.
This is hardly limited to any single political orientation, the far right is typified by platforms and proposed legislation that ignores the complex reality of modern life in favor of ‘value principles’ (such as prayer in school, etc) that people can understand and attach themselves to on an emotional level. The far left is similarly attached to the concept of fairness at an emotional level that does not take into account many practical dependencies.
I’ll buy Cooper, but I think the question really is: Why isn’t there any moderate faction in the Libertarian Party? I don’t know much at all about them, but they are a total reject, in my case, based on their outlook(s) on personal weaponry. What is being really sought here, I think, is moderate anarchy. I’m not sure what that is.
Ray (Maybe we just live in a two-dimensional world, wherein the thrust of Libertarianism is simply “hyper”, so to speak.)