The Libertarian Party has historically avoided taking personal responsibility for poor vote percentages. LPers seem to be experts at projecting their failures away from themselves and onto the other guys. "They won't let us in debates." "They control a rigged system." "They won't cover us in the media." "They...." "They...." "They...."
Here are 10 important reasons the Libertarian Party is its own worse enemy.
1. The LP does not take a strong enough stand for life in all stages. The LP abortion position needs to state something like: " Life is our standard. We recognize all human life in every stage of development from initial inception to old age has a right to choose it's own destiny. We see abortion as a violation of this freedom of choice and seek to end all government support of abortion."
2. The LP does not take a strong enough stand for life in other lands. The LP foreign policy position needs to state something like: "Life everywhere is our standard. We support efforts to preclude and prevent violations of life regardless of borders, regardless of the rank or prominence or entrenchment of the violators. It is not our government's business to police the world, but our government must always encourage voluntary aid to those fighting against violations of life."
3. The LP does not take a strong enough stand for life at its healthiest. The LP position on self-ownership needs to state something like: "Life at its healthiest is our standard. We support efforts to encourage maximum health. It is not our government's business to prevent people from making life-style choices which may be unhealthy. Nor is it our government's business to save people from the lessons of the bad choices they have made. But our candidates always encourage the healthiest choices."
4. The LP does not take a strong enough stand for life in its fullness. The LP position on religion needs to state something like: "Life in it's fullness is our standard. We support any efforts to help people express maximum love and joy and inner peace, whether those efforts are made by religions or secular organizations. Our candidates always encourage and never in any way hamper such efforts.
5. Over-yapping the NAP (Non-aggression principle). Our deepest natural impulse is to live. But we are not living life to the fullest unless we let live. Thus the Libertarian Way: live and let live, of which the NAP is the "let live" portion. But constantly yapping about "let live" without first and foremost standing strong for "live" invites people to interpret the LP as favoring "anything goes." In other words voters very easily see the LP as libertine, which to their everyday common sense is repulsive.
6. Insulting voters. Most people have voted in the past, many of them having supported either the Republican or Democratic Party. People who have supported these parties may have been mistaken, but they don't want it rubbed in their faces. They are not won over by calling the parties they have supported "evil." When libertarians label Republicans "evil," or Democrats "evil," those who have sided with Republicans or Democrats feel insulted and can hardly be blamed if they respond: "These libertarians think themselves so holy? I don't think so!"
7. Attacking others verbally. People sense at some deeper than surface level that we are all in this together. They vaguely feel that an attack on any human being is on some level an attack on each of us. Certainly holding attack thoughts in mind sabotages one's own love and joy and inner peace. LP supporters extending love would be attractive. LP activists expressing joy would be fun to be around. Libertarians feeling inner peace would be magnetic. But LPers who attack are ugly and repulsive. Who would want to support ugly and repulsive?
8. Holier than thou "we are the party of principle." All political parties have their principles. The Green Party, the Democratic Party, the Republican party ... they all publish a statement of principles they stand for. There is no party that is not a party of principle. The LP should declare itself not the party of principle, which begs the question of which principles, but the party of life in it's fullness. Then they can explain that the human spirit is free and cannot express life in its fullness without political liberty. People deep down really, really want life in its fullness.
9. Intellectual arrogance. Voters are intelligent men and women who are at least somewhat in-touch with the wisdom of their deepest inner life force. In other words, they enjoy some degree of balance between their intellect and what might be called "common sense." So when libertarians seem to act as if mental masturbation provides all their pleasure, but what common people do is outmoded, voters look away. To most voters sterile intellectualism is as much a turn-off as spinelessness, wishy-washiness, flaunted ego masquerading as individualism, or pot-headedness.
10. Avoidance of brutally honest self-examination. What the LP offers needs to be the most appealing alternative available in politics. Otherwise, why bother? But if the LP had been offering the most appealing alternative in the most appealing way, it would not have been floundering for over 40 years. It would have long ago become the most prominent and influential political party on the scene. LPers simply do not honestly with wide open minds ask themselves, "how are we sabotaging ourselves?" Their holier than thou attitude more often has them saying something like, "you tell us how we are sabotaging ourselves, and we'll argue that you are wrong."
fas-cism
noun
a socialist governmental system led by a dominant elite which seeks to control industry and commerce, and uses legislation and governmental decree to force Utopian programs on people.
free-dom
noun
one's natural state of being; a governmental system reflecting one's natural state, including voluntary funding and voluntary willingness to join and cooperate with minimal intrinsic rules, but with no programs of "good intention" forced on people "for their own good."
If you are newly waking up to your innate libertarian core and want to investigate deeper the underlying nonsense of the liberal-progressive religion of government worship, give yourself the pleasure of reading Ayn Rand's epic and masterful novel, Atlas Shrugged.
"God's laws will keep your minds at peace, because peace IS His Will, and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER. The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic." -Jesus Christ in A Course in Miracles
Interesting factoid: for the last election year studied (1998) some of the highest percentage of votes for Libertarian Party candidates were for candidates who had been studying free of charge the lessons of: Course in Political Miracles
For a great discussion on Christianity vs. State Socialism see: Christianity vs. State Socialism
“I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me." (Prayer from A Course in Miracles)
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