It's Their Party and They'll Die If They Want To

From the e-mail file -- comments, dated March 4, on an Internet article saying that "the Libertarian Party must die". Quote from the article: "A shutdown of the Libertarian Party would get radicals and moderates out of each others hair. Radicals could pursue the long neglected non-electoral strategies for long-term radical change and moderates could apply their energies to seeking small reforms inside the major parties, as Ron Paul does." My comments:

But the major parties are hopeless! Ron Paul is an anomaly, and we see how much hostility he has engendered within the Republican Party and among the Neocons. Once he's out of the picture, they will close ranks again and it will be as if he never existed. No, there has to be a baseline organization devoted to libertarian political efforts, even if it does threaten to dissolve into fragments from time to time. Why can't the party be as broad-based as Liberty magazine, e.g.? They don't seem to be wallowing in compromise, or selling out.

By the same token, there probably has to be a paleocon organ, e.g. the Constitution Party, to serve people who are mostly libertarian but who have conservative or traditional moral values (not synonymous with church attendance but highly correlated). Admittedly, I can't see the LP and the CP forming a united front any time soon, alth. both segments have certainly supported Ron Paul (informally at least).

There will always be a conflict between "purists" of all stripes who prefer to have their own little fiefdoms, a la the Balkans -- and the more "big umbrella" types. That it itself is not an unhealthy thing -- it actually reflects two major concepts of the role of ideas in politics. We might question how practical the purist stance is for winning elections -- but a true purist would not rank that very high as a concern; it's the ideas that count, again re: the Ron Paul campaign. The risk on the "big umbrella" side is that by attempting to please everyone we wind up pleasing no one. Someone's going to say, "that's politics", but then the question arises, can we have democratic government without "politics"? It might be worth a try...