Last updated on October 26, 2023
Toward an Organizing Committee for a New Freedom-Aligned Party
by Publius Valerius
Surveys have shown roughly equal division between people who think that libertarians should abandon the Libertarian party and tried to take over the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, people who think that libertarians should try to cover their party from the current controllers, people who think that a new political party is needed, and people who support the current Party national leadership.. Attempting to unite all these people under a single banner is an exercise in futility, because their aims and ideas are contradictory. I, Publius Valerius, will propose arguments for creating an organizing committee for a new party, here under the draft name Prosperity and Freedom.
First, Prosperity and Freedom will not be a cookie-cutter copy of the Libertarian party. On one hand, there already is a Libertarian party; splitting it in two is not progress. On the other hand, we have already tried the formulation used by the Libertarian party, and its success has been quite limited, if greater than that of any other third party since the Republican Party of a century and a half ago.
What do I propose that is not the same as what the Libertarian party already has?
First, the new party is a political party, not a philosophical talking shop. It is there to recruit and run candidates, organize referenda, and propagandize for its political positions. It supports creating the other activities needed for a successful political movement, such as affiliated think tanks and fraternal organizations. It is not there to talk about a hypothetical future utopia, whose evils will probably not be the ones that could be anticipated now. It is there to move public policy and directions that create prosperity and create freedom.
Second, drop the membership oath. Debates about this cult object have transfixed generations of libertarians without creating political progress. Claims that one can logically derive all political positions from the non-aggression principle, which is not quite the same as the membership oath, show a serious lack of understanding of what we currently know about logic.
Third, abandon jargon that is only comprehensible to people who have listened to many lectures about party doctrine and believed them. The phrase “self-ownership” comes most immediately to mind. As most Americans are aware, the United States fought a major war with vast numbers of casualties, relative to the population at the time, to end slavery, that is, to end the notion that people can be owned.
Fourth, there are number of groups of people who are not welcome in the new party. Among these I would note adherents of the Mises Caucus, antivaxxers, global warming deniers, people who think the Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned, southern historical reconstructionists, Roberts Rules fanatics, isolationists, anti-taxers, and people who support the Russian Republic’s attack on Europe. What do we do about these people? See our next post.
Interesting. I agree with a number of things that were said, however, the name proposed for a new political party is blah. I am not saying that I have a better one, but I have certainly thought about what a name could be for quite a while, and that name is just marketing fluff. The first two questions anyone will ask is prosperity for who and freedom for who? The media will rip it to shreds.
This article appears to be very similar to things that I and others have been saying for a long time, and I believe at this point there are actually four or five groups attempting to form new parties.
Some of the factions mentioned are harmless, but there is a much less vague answer needed to those who ask why wouldn’t you allow Mises? That is like asking why wouldn’t you allow Nazis? Because they are evil incarnate. Yes, Mises is evil. To the liberty movement it is the equivalent of the Nazis. There, someone had to start using that word.
Not all Mises of course, just as all of Germany wasn’t evil. But those that blindly follow what they are doing, and do not question the destruction they are causing are just diseased sheep. And political parties do not need disease. Enough about Mises.
I may pen a longer response. While most of his, her or their issues have been raised already, the author or authors did bring up important issues, and continued discussion is needed. But I won’t hide behind a fake name. Are we even sure that this was written by one person? It ends with “ See our next post.”, and I am always skeptical of anything written with a fake name. 🙂
I’m back…
I had to look it up, but Publius Valerius (Publicola) was one of the founders of the Roman Republic, two and a half thousand years ago. Publius was the nom de plume of Hamilton, Jay, and Madison when they wrote the Federalist Papers, the foundational documents behind our Constitution. The three authors noted the sound republican credentials of the last defenders of the Roman Republic, Brutus and Cato, but their names were already in use by anti-Federalists.
I knew it had something to do with the Roman Republic, but I was not familiar with that name.
Of course, I can understand why some people may want to be anonymous. and most people on here use fake names, with only a few of us using our actual real name. Perhaps this author or authors are still active in a party – most likely the libertarian party.
It could be helpful to know if it is one person or more than one person, but that probably doesn’t matter.
Can I get a cool fake name? If not, is there anyway to get a better avatar? How much of a donation does that require? 🙂
As for as more successful third parties…
George Wallace’s American Independent Party won five states in the Electoral Collage in 1968.
The Reform Party elected a governor in 1998, Jesse Ventura.
The LP’s biggest claim to fame is its staying power. The AIP and RP both made bigger splashes, then rapidly declined.
Barry Commoner’s Citizen’s Party, and the Populist Party of the 1980s … lots of third parties came, promised big things, then quickly vanished.
Considering that it’s been around for over 50 years, the LP has achieved little, but I guess that it is still around is itself an achievement.
And it’s been remarkably stable over all that time. So many other third parties exist as shells of their former glory, whereas the LP has managed to secure 50, or nearly 50, state ballot access in every presidential race for decades.
It may be very instructive if someone with an intimate knowledge of recent LP history was to go back to Nolan’s original “Case for a Libertarian Party” and analyze what was achieved and what wasn’t. 50 years certainly seems a long enough test to determine the need for the (or a new) LP in 2023.
That is actually an excellent idea! An analysis of what actually happened versus what was conceived?
I don’t know if I ever read it, but I am sure it is online somewhere and I am going to go read it tomorrow. Baseball is still on tonight… 🙂
This seems like a poor thesis for a new political party. What’s the core constituency of this party? Who will it conceivably attract that the LP has not? How will it attract folks from the major parties? This proposal basically seems like a call for a smaller version of the LP, which doesn’t seem like a good use of anyone’s time.
While I agree that it is not a thesis, I do not believe that was the intent of the author(s). This looks to me like the opening part of the classic: I’m going to tell them what I’m going to tell them, then I’m going to tell them, then I’m going to tell them what I told them presentation.
Baseball season is almost over, although I think I only watched perhaps 300 to 400 games this year on the MLB app or Hulu. Time to get back to thinking about politics, now that the temperature outside is down from “melts your shoes standing on the sidewalk” to “comfortable enough to not have to hide from the yellow orb”.
But is a thesis needed? I agree that a duplicate of the libertarian party is a waste of time, and the author(s) clearly said that is not what they’re looking for.
I am interested in reading in Mr. Publius Valerius’ next article about what he will do to keep the people he terms “unwelcome” from joining his party and also why anyone would want to join the party he wants to create. He appears to be more interested in excluding people than trying to attract people. It sounds like it would be the same as the Democrat and Republic parties but with a different name.
NewFederalist – Isn’t saying the Socialist Party and Prohibition Party were more successful than the Libertarian Party a bit like saying the Tyrannosaurs Rex was more successful than Homo Sapiens? T-Rex was the apex predator for 2 million years vs 200,000 for humans. But, ultimately, the T-Rex went extinct, and here we are.
Don’t take my statement about the T-Rex being the apex predator literally. I don’t know anything about dinosaurs.
If your dinosaur reference is to suggest that the Socialist Party (at least the party of Debs) and the Prohibition Party no longer exist as anything close to what they once were you are correct. If you believe comparing them to the Libertarian Party is unfair I don’t get it. In 50 years the Libertarian Party has never elected a member of Congress. Both the other parties I referenced did. The Socialists elected the mayor of Milwaukee and the Drys elected a governor of Florida (fusion albeit). I joined the LP in 1974 so I am certainly not pleased at the lack of success in contrast to the Socialists and even the Drys. Just pointing out the obvious.
Publius also forgot 9/11 truthers and 2020 election deniers. The list is long, but their Venn diagram has massive overlaps, so the group of people who are not welcome in the proposed new party is much smaller than it might at first sound.
Publius does not quite reach the brilliant oratorical heights of her or his 18th century predecessors, but he is certainly not a bad writer.
There is no indication yet as that the proposed new party is centrist. So far in Publius’s description it might as well be termed the Anti-Crackpot Party, a name borrowed from the 19th century Anti-Masonic Party.
Or perhaps the New Prohibition Party since the list of prohibited members seems large.
This person posits that the liberty movement is at a critical juncture and that they are creating a way forward more effective than the LP (okay, I’m interested in seeing how the argument goes). They also propose dropping the LP membership oath as a supposed “cult object” (well enough).
They then proceed to list a litany of people in various disputed and sometimes vague categorizations that they personally don’t want in this fictional new party. By taking a hardline stance on these issues, as a BUNDLE, as THE line in the sand, they have created something even more narrow than anything coming out of the Mises Caucus. This is itself cultic behavior, albeit in another direction.
It is impossible to be politically effective as a PARTY that can WIN ELECTIONS without having at least somewhat of a broad tent. This person has completely nullified any credibility whatsoever their argument — already weak and poorly-written — may have had. This is simply an exercise in imagination about creating a party where everyone magically agrees with the founder on everything.
Pass.
The Libertarian Party is most certainly NOT the most successful “third” party since the Republicans. The Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs was far more successful in terms of elected officials and vote percentages. Even the Prohibition Party enjoyed more success in its heyday.
As I understand Publius, there is no contradiction here. Publius lists a collection of crackpots and worse who cause sensible people to turn away from the organization. They are not allowed to enter and stink up the room with their rantings, so that large numbers of Americans will join. Also, Publius forgot gold bugs and survivalists.
Can this anonymous person not contradict themselves at every opportunity? If non-exclusivity is the goal, then why mention additional purity tests?
A few libertarians have gone to the Forward Party. Isn’t this call for a centrist or moderate alternative political party that repeats the Forward Party goal?
Ultimately, can someone simply run a good campaign in the LP and systematically raise money? It does seem that LP Indiana knows what its doing.