Jake Witmer took me to task in a comment on my post about Mainstream Libertarians. While I take issue with a number of his points and would point out that I have never had anything to do with the Libertarian Party, the comment was clearly well thought out and impassioned, so I’m posting it in its entirety:
“The losertarian faction of the Libertarian Party repeatedly nominates people who are the most radical in their foreign policy. I am a friend of Dondero's even though I don't agree with his stance on Iraq. I also favor limited military responses to terrorist training camps in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
What Dondero says at Mainstream Libertarian is a watered down version of "libertarian". WHy is this both necessary and intelligent? To draw support from the masses of people who are, themselves, "watered down".
In case any of you radical yammerheads noticed, the libertarians usually get vastly less than 1% of any vote. To remedy this, we need to pander, without ideally running candidates who don't know they are pandering. It means doing damage to our enemy, "the omnipotent state". How much damage has any losertarian cost the government? Any government?
I know that the governments of MT, ID, OR, and MO were all put on the defensive by the stellar work that Dondero did on the eminent domain repeal petitions that Eric circulated there. Those petitions helped the people in those states keep their homes. It helped roll back overbearing, tyrannical government. It tied up the resources of morally corrupted judges while those States squealed and moaned about how it would "hurt their ability to plan their infrastructure".
But you guys don't see any of this, because it's dark --where your heads are-- inside your asses.
In 1984, the losertarians ran the most productive people out of the "bigger tent" party of 1980 -result -loserville (340,000 votes with bergland). The Arizona Party shot both its feet off with the same infighting, and overbearing radicalism. SO did the IL Party in 2005 (surrendering ballot access and major party status when all they needed to do was run candidates).
In short -- "Mainstream Libertarian" would not even exist if it weren't for 27 years of "vote for the most radical LP candidate over all others, not matter how much more likely their chances of victory are". The too-radical for victory crowd in the LP created the "watered down" libertarian approach out of sheer necessity.
Now then, I'm a radical libertarian. As such, I support everything that mainstream libertarian does. I support watering down the LP OVERTLY SPOKEN AND COMMUNICATED PHILOSOPHY --because "Americans" or what passes for them these days --- CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.
Do I want to lose ALL of my freedoms because the Party I'm associated with isn't smart enough to pander (run people who say what it takes to get elected, then do as they please)? NO, I don't. If we have to lie to people who are pointing guns at us in order to not get shot --let's lie!
It's as morally important that all of you idiots out there understand this concept as it is for you to understand this one: THE PEOPLE WHO SHELTERED JEWS FROM THE NAZIS AND BLACKS IN THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD SHOULD NOT HAVE COMMUNICATED THAT THEY WERE BREAKING THE LAW --THEIR DISHONESTY WAS TO PREVENT THE WRONGFUL INITIATION OF FORCE, AND WAS THEREFORE MORAL!!!!!!!!!!
Simple lesson. This is the same reason that Ayn Rand was an idiot not to support the Libertarian Party, and David Kelley's "big tent" concept.
A pro-freedom party cannot be radical. But the people who run under it can.
Moreover, if I have a choice of decriminalize pot via electoral politics or say I'm going to decriminalize all drugs where that's not popular (and thereby decriminalize NOTHING), I'll choose the small victory.
Liberty loses ground to tryanny over the long term anyway, until the next revolution/rebellion.
Moreover, there are better ways to force the state to adopt liberty than elections. Elections are an advance auction of stolen goods, and as such those with the most to steal lose, and those with the most desire to steal gain. Guess which group has the greatest quantity and which has the greatest quality? ---It shouldn't be hard to see that stealing will be more popular.
If you want to cost the state money, in a direct way, RIGHT NOW, while pursuing an in-your-face radical strategy, GET A BUNCH OF FIJA material and get your ass to your local court of lies!
---Ooooops! That takes GUTS! YOu risk getting arrested! You actually have to KNOW YOUR SHIT to do that!
How many losertarians can and will do that?Virtually none.
Coincidentally, they also NEVER want to walk door-to-door in their districts. Or if they do, they don't want to MAKE SURE THEIR CANDIDATE WILL WIN.
That's always too much work.But sit around and bitch on the internet?
That's EASY. Lots of takers there!”
I reckon he told me. One question. To whom is Mainstream Libertarian pandering? Given that its candidate of choice is the fascist Rudy Giuliani, I’m guessing it’s frustrated libertarians that are being pandered to.
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3 comments:
Well, he has the frat boy rhetorical style of College Republicans down pat. Is anyone affiliated with Dondero *not* an ill-mannered, obnoxious asshole incapable of civil disagreement?
I am in no way "affiliated" with Eric Dondero nor have I ever been, except as a fellow employee of Paul Jacob, when we did work to fight big government on 3 initiatives of his. Eric performed admirably n his job as a paid petitioner, although he has since lost his mind and become totally ineffective. In the past, where Eric and I agreed on things, I was in agreement with those things only, and none of Eric's larger "strategy". I am in agreement with the general strategy that Eric professes, which is to appear to compromise on unpopular issues without ever actually compromising, so that libertarians can actually get elected and thus make a REAL difference. Since Eric now opposes Ron Paul's presidential bid, and uses only fallacious arguments online, and is currently supporting the fascist Giuliani for president, I am no longer associated with him in any way. If I am occasionally ill-mannered, it is, again, only because I believe that the loss of liberty is the greatest threat to the future of mankind. ( See What Price Freedom? by Robert Freitas, Online at: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0665.html?printable=1 ) I also view tyranny and bureaucracy as unnecessary, and am frustrated that the money and time being spent to defend liberty is not often being spent in intelligent ways. (Well, at least not until the 2008 Ron Paul presidential bid was announced.) -Jake Witmer not signed in, for the reason that I'm on an old computer and blogger is buggy.
This is Jake. I have terminated my friendship with Dondero, due to my gaining additional information about his low character. I have asked him to remove the outdated quote from me on his website. That he refuses to do so further reveals his low character. I have since become less optimistic about the Libertarian Party, and more optimistic about libertarianism.
Yes, of course, Libertarians must pander to the public so as to not sound completely libertarian. This can be done without lying, it simply means that most people are not ready for the truth.
That you assert that my argument implies the apparatus of the police state clouds any real discussion of the issues. It is simply my point that: because the general public is not libertarian, and not ready to move in the direction of libertarianism until they are uncomfortable, any strategy for advancing freedom will have to do one of 2 things:
1) appear to not offer true individual freedom (...but rather to generalize the principles that our servile public has come to physically reject, but to revere in incomplete form)
2) make the public more uncomfortable
Without one or both or some part of those two things happening, there will be no movement towards freedom. Moreover, no libertarian will ever win office while people are as uneducated as they are. A sub-rule is that people will not educate themselves until they are less comfortable than they are now (and not even then, if there are no libertarians in the public spotlight).
A subrule to that above rule is that: There will be no libertarians in the spotlight if we have not pandered enough to the comfortable majority, to reach the coming less comfortable minority and the following uncomfortable majority.
For those who don't like to think, my suggestion is not that we "sell out". It's that we appear to sell out, via implementing internal controls that prevent a non-libertarian from running as a libertarian. After such controls are implemented, we can be better assured that suggestions to moderate one's language will not be abused.
Of course I still advocate as radical a libertarianism as is possible WITHOUT VIOLENCE.
The people on this board suggesting otherwise are very similar to Eric Dondero.
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