From a Frenchman:
Have you ever heard about the French Libertarian Party?
Me neither. True, there’s a couple of pretenders to the title, but they are merely social clubs, where every now and then attendants get a tingling in the pants by quoting good old Ludwig Von Mises and Claude Frédéric Bastiat between connoisseurs. Their true distinctive feature when compared to the other French is that they won’t even bother entertaining any delusion of grandeur or relevance — they know they have no place in the French political process, and no chance to ever gain one.
So hear this, Friends of Gary the Third Party and other Principled Abstentionists: by choosing ideological purity over strategic thinking, you’ve effectively hedged your own political future in the one competing force that is most capable of propelling you into irrelevance and oblivion—as we say in France: Bravo!
Just as in France, once a majority of the US population—no matter how slim — has tasted the poisonous fruits of the State, they will demand the keys to the cornucopia and regard with disdain, scorn or hostility any soul brave or foolish enough to call it unsustainable and propose to lock the larder. The fact that you are right will not matter at all. Just as they do in France, the people will ask for more and tout de suite, never realizing or willing to acknowledge that they are effectively cannibalizing themselves and their offspring — as we’ve been saying in France for quite a while: Après moi le Déluge!
Thank in no small part to you, Obama now has more time to multiply the locusts, thus depleting your future ranks. You shall keep fancying yourselves as The Smart Ones, when compared to those Neanderthaloid Conservatives and Liberal Zombies, until one of you wonders aloud why the lights went off in the Libertarian cave, and hears only the echo in answer.
Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter retort of a sore loser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen your future because he lives in it: you, my friend, who didn’t oppose Obama today will be politically extinct tomorrow.
He has advice for Republicans, too.
Merde! I am a Libertarian, vote Libertarian, because I know from decades of experience that the Republicans will never provide smaller government – even loosely defined as spending less one year than the previous year – without external inducement. Instead, they spend their time painting Democrats, who are only slightly more evil than themselves, as great monsters that must be destroyed at all costs. So long as they can do that, year after year, and people respond to it, the GOP never has to do a bloody thing towards small government.
The Socialist Party in the 1920’s and 30’s never won a major race, but by garnering a consistent five to ten percent of the vote, which is the victory margin more often than not, they managed to get a major party, we all know who, to adopt major parts of their platform. That is what I want the LP to do now, to make the Republicans do what they will never otherwise do.
Not a protest, not a message, but a strategy.
A losing strategy because it doesn’t recognize the fight inside the republican party being waged by the tea party. Ron Paul recognized this. Those voting LP do not.
If you could find a great communicator (Ross Perot before he went into melt down) you might have something. Until then you are punching the wind.
When the Republicans lose an election, they move left. They reason, correctly, that there are more votes in the 51% to their left than the 1% to their right.
When Democrats win elections, they move left. They reason that they now have the votes to do what they’ve wanted to do all along.
So by moving the election from Republicans to Democrats, the Libertarians move both parties to the left. This happens time and time again, but the Libertarians never learn.