I don’t disagree the LP is the best product in the political world. However, if you don’t have a professional politician to market that product you are accomplishing nothing. We have tried to market the same tired ideas for 30 years with no real gain. How much longer do you continue to try a failed message?

There is no other reason for a political party to exist besides winning elections. Otherwise, we are a debating society. You change the current power structure through winning elections. There is no other way to do it.

When I say “sacrifice principles” I don’t mean we all of a sudden become big government interventionists. I mean we sacrifice small things like legalizing all drugs. Maybe we start with marijuana and try to work our way up. That is a sacrifice that will help you win favor among voters who still have a negative stigma of drugs.

Again, if you aren’t trying to win elections there is no purpose for this party to exist. We can sit around and talk about what is wrong and what we would change for another 30 years, or we can put out a legitimate candidate who can actually make a dent while spreading the Libertarian message.

debate society, indeed. crazy shit going on round here.

Wow, strong words.
Well, for argument’s sake, let us say Barr was an “institutional fascist”.I think any defeat of an institutional fascist and replacing him/her with an even much worse institutional fascist, most definitely no victory for liberty; it is rather a step or several steps further away from liberty!

There seem to be some weakness in disinter’s rational argumentation. It seems he has a weakness and reacting out of pure emotional distortion. Sorry, with that you will not convince anyone to become a Libertarian.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/hickory.html

“It was known in 1833 that corporations threatened the welfare of the nation.
William M. Gouge: A Short History of Paper Money and Banking in the United States (Philadelphia, 1833) Pp. 41-44, 84-90, 123-140

Against Corporations of every kind, the objection may be brought that whatever power is given to them is so much taken from either the government or the people. As the object of charters is to give to members of companies powers which they would not possess in their individual capacity, the very existence of monied corporations is incompatible with equality of rights.

Corporations are unfavorable to the progress of national wealth. As the Argus eyes of private interest do not watch over their concerns, their affairs are much more carelessly and much more expensively conducted than those of individuals. What would be the condition of the merchant who should trust everything to his clerks, or of the farmer who should trust everything to his laborers? Corporations are obliged to trust everything to stipendiaries, who are oftentimes less trustworthy than the clerks of the merchant or the laborers of the farmer.

Such are the inherent defects of corporations that they never can succeed, except when the laws or circumstances give them a monopoly or advantages partaking of the nature of a monopoly. Sometimes they are protected by direct inhibitions to individuals to engage in the same business. Sometimes they are protected by an exemption from liabilities to which individuals are subjected. Sometimes the extent of their capital or of their credit gives them a control of the market. They cannot, even then, work as cheap as the individual trader, but they can afford to throw away enough money in the contest to ruin the individual trader, and then they have the market to themselves.

If a poor man suffers aggression from a rich man, the disproportion of power is such that it may be difficult for him to obtain redress; but if a man is aggrieved by a corporation, he may have all its stockholders, all its clerks, and all its protégés for parties against him. Corporations are so powerful as frequently to bid defiance to government.

If a man is unjust or an extortioner, society is, sooner or later, relieved from the burden by his death. But corporations never die. What is worst of all (if worse than what has already been stated be possible) is that want of moral feeling and responsibility which characterizes corporations. A celebrated English writer expressed the truth, with some roughness, but with great force, when he declared that “corporations have neither bodies to be kicked , nor souls to be damned.”

All these objections apply to our American banks. They are protected, in most of the states, by directed inhibitions on individuals engaging in the same business. They are exempted from liabilities to which individuals are subjected. If a poor man cannot pay his debts, his bed is, in some of the states, taken from under him. If that will not satisfy his creditors, his body is imprisoned. The shareholders in a bank are entitled to all the gain they can make by banking operations; but if the undertaking chances to be unsuccessful, the loss falls on those who have trusted them. They are responsible only for the amount of stock they may have subscribed.

For the old standard of value, they substitute the new standard of bank credit. Would government be willing to trust to corporations the fixing of our standards and measures of length, weight, and capacity? Or are our standards and measures of value of less importance than our standards and measures of other things?

They coin money out of paper. What has always been considered one of the most important prerogatives of government has been surrendered to the banks.

In addition to their own funds, they have the whole of the spare cash of the community to work upon. The credit of every businessman depends on their not. They have it in their power to ruin any merchant to whom they may become inimical.

We have laws against usury; but if it was the intention of the legislature to encourage usurious dealings, what more efficient means could be devised than that of establishing incorporated paper money banks? Government extends the credit of these institutions by receiving their paper as an equivalent of specie, and exerts its whole power to protect and cherish them. Whoever infringes any of the chartered privileges of the banks is visited with the severest penalties.

Supposing banking to be a thing good in itself, why should bankers be exempted from liabilities to which farmers, manufacturers, and merchants are subjected? It will not surely be contended that banking is more conducive than agriculture, manufactures, and commerce to the progress of national wealth.

Supposing the subscribers to banks be substantial capitalists, why should artificial power be conferred on them by granting them a charter? Does not wealth of itself confer sufficient advantages on the rich man? Why should the competition among capitalists be diminished by forming them into companies and uniting their wealth in one mass?

Supposing the subscribers to banks to be speculators without capital, what is there so praiseworthy in their design of growing rich without labor that government should exert all its powers to favor the undertaking?

Why should corporations have greater privileges than simple copartnerships? On what principle is it that , in a professedly republican government, immunities are conferred on individuals in a collective capacity that are refused to individuals in their separate capacity> . . .

If two individuals should trade with one another, on the same principle that the banks trade with the community, it would soon be seen on which side the advantage lay. If A should pay interest on all the notes he gave and finally pay the notes himself with his own wealth, and if B should receive interest on all the notes he issued and finally pay the notes themselves with A’s wealth, A’s loss and B’s gain would be in proportion to the amount of transactions between them.

This is the exact principle of American banking operations; but, owing to the multitude of persons concerned, the nature of the transaction is not discovered by the public. Regard the whole banking interest as one body corporate and the whole of the rest of the community as one body politic, and it will be seen that the body politic, pays interest to the body corporate for the whole amount of notes received, while the body corporate finally satisfied the demands of the body politic by transferring the body politic’s own property to its credit.

In private credit, there is a reciprocity of burdens and of benefits. Substantial wealth is given when goods are sold, and substantial wealth is received when payment is made, and an equivalent is allowed for the time during which payment is deferred. If A took a note from B, endorsed by the richest man in the country, he would require interest for the time for which payment was postponed. But the banking system reverses this natural order. The interest which is due to the productive classes that receive the bank notes is paid to the banks that issue them.

If the superior credit the banks enjoy grew out of the natural order of things, it would not be a subject of complaint. But the banks owe their credit to their charters – to special acts of legislation in their favor, and to their notes being made receivable in payment of dues to government. The kind of credit which is created for them by law, being equalpollent with cash in the market, enables them to transfer an equal amount of substantial wealth from the productive classes to themselves, giving the productive classes only representatives of credit or evidences of debt in return for the substantial wealth which they part with. . .

To infer that because a system produces great evil it must soon give way would be to argue in opposition to all experience. If mere suffering could produce reformation, there would be little misery in the world. Too many individuals have an interest in incorporated paper money banks to suffer the truth in relation to such institutions to have free progress. Too many prejudices remain in the minds of a multitude who have no such interests to permit the truth to have its proper effect….”

....AND NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED, REPUBLICRATS!...

I don’t care what product you are selling, it is inane to change the product when it isn’t bought if you haven’t tried to market it.

Bingo.

So you think the congressman that was voted in the place of Barr was/is more libertarian than him (or in your words, not as unlibertarian)?

I think any defeat of an institutional fascist like Barf is a victory for liberty.

(BTW: Paul & Barr support pulling out of all non-US countries militarily as soon as possible).

Barf is no non-interventionist. He still wants to mingle in the affairs of many countries such as Columbia.

• Yes, that’s probably partially true, but funding does not cause votes. Advertising doesn’t cause buying, but it does influence it.

• Did Ed Thompson spend 10% to get 10% of the vote for WI governor? I suspect not.

• The secondary effect of the Clark campaign is that the LP membership swelled. Party building is an important consideration.

• The only way to “change the power structure” is to get a seat at the table. Voters only “buy” one candidate per office. Sorry, Steve, but your analogy doesn’t hold.

Then you will always be a failure in politics and never come close to accomplishing your goal. Succeeding in politics means you often have to sacrifice some principles. Thats just the nature of politics.

Mr Gonzo, my point is that the LP has by far the best product in the political world, Barr none. sorry, couldn’t resist! The LP’s problem is that we expect voters to buy the best product without our trying to market the idea(s). Then we blame the voter for not buying our product.

I don’t care what product you are selling, it is inane to change the product when it isn’t bought if you haven’t tried to market it.

A political party exists for one reason: to win elections

WRONG democrats and republicans exist only for the power. Libertarians don’t want power, but rather want to change the “power structure” so that our children can live peaceful, productive lives.

If a person only wanted power, why would they be trying to attain it through a tiny, unfunded party? That is illogical. And why I think I can trust Barr.

PEACE
Steve

So you think the congressman that was voted in the place of Barr was/is more libertarian than him (or in your words, not as unlibertarian)? Give me a break
Quit acting like a fool. If you reject this notion, please proof how the replacement of Barr is more libertarian than 1) he was and 2) Barr currently is.

Perfection is the enemy of progress!

Then you will always be a failure in politics and never come close to accomplishing your goal. Succeeding in politics means you often have to sacrifice some principles. Thats just the nature of politics.

If you aren’t willing to do that participate in a debating club instead. A political party exists for one reason: to win elections

Ed Clark’s vote total probably had more to do with having had a mega-rich Vice Presidential candidate in David Koch, who threw a few million dollars of his own money into the race.