[648] in libertarians
Re: Harry Browne for President
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Sun Feb 12 17:39:14 1995
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 10 Feb 1995 22:52:15 EST."
<199502110342.WAA22533@zork.tiac.net>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 17:37:33 EST
From: Vernon Imrich <vimrich@MIT.EDU>
|> >This is what I mean. The LP has for years tried to couple itself to a
|> >certain personal philosophical outlook.
|>
|> Actually, I'd argue that it's _never_ done this.
I was unclear. I didn't mean ONE certain outlook. I meant that it
too often couples things that are narrow political ideas to a more
"encompassing" outlook. E.g. coupling individual rights with
individualism. It's not so much the party as an organism either, just
the people in it.
|> I guess this depends on what you mean by "altruism." But take a quote that
|> appeared on the Globe's Op-Ed page this week: "Food is a fundamental human
|> need and access to food is a fundamental human right." This is essentially
|> what I'm talking about: the notion that needs = rights. Most people have
I agree with you. I once used this analogy to argue against health care
rights. Everyone warned against it saying that I was more likely to
convince some that we needed to nationalize the food system rather than
that we didn't need to nationalize the health system.
|> >Safe Streets, etc.) but were accused of "selling out" by the hard liners
|> >almost all of which are objectivists.
|>
|> I would really, really object to the word "objectivist" here. Not only
|> because no Objectivist organization has anything to do with the LP (in
I tell them this with little result.
|> fact, David Kelley of IOS has done some work for Cato and has written for
|> Reason, both moderate-libertarian organizations), but really their ideas
|> are not objectivist; "hard-line libertarian" would be a better description.
I guess I should've qualifed this. The people who have most often been
hardliners are also objectivists by their own proclamation. But being an
objectivist does not make you a hardliner (far from it). I think this
all comes from some misapplication of the Randian notion of "no compromise."
I guess this has been somewhat of an unresolved issue between the IOS
and the ARI.
There are other philosophical hard liners (anarchists, for example) but they
don't seem so worried about party structure because often the most extreme
of these don't partake in the system at all.
|> Rand's basic point, and one I really agree with, is that while there may be
|> a dozen different philosophical justificiations for "minarchism" ... you
|> need to pick one and stand by it!
I disagree (mostly). For political purposes, a collectivist who
hates government enforcement of collectivism is the same as an individualist
who wants individual rights through government. However, when it comes to
one's views on government then I agree. E.g. the arguments that "government
is force" or "free trade is consentual." In general I think it's good
policy to show all the many ways a given idea has been justified. In a
paper I got on property rights, they listed five arguments (Locke's "mixing
of labor", someone elses "expression of being," Rand's "you own yourself")
Lots of ways to the same conclusion often means that the conclusion is
is inescapable reality. It's like the days when engineering outpaced
science. We knew THAT things worked only in certain ways, but there were
several theories as to HOW (or WHY) they worked that way.
|> I mean, obviously the LP has no hope for
|> winning at the ballot box in the near future; the organization's purpose
|> (as I understand it) is to try and persuade people of the virtues of
|> small/no government.
This is where I disagree most strongly. It may be that the LP as such
has too many problems, but I see real opportunity for a third party.
If I were to run for office in some party, I'd much prefer a Ruddman/Tsongas
Condord Coalition Party than the current GOP for example. Even better
would be for the LP to subsume some of the RLC crowd and some of the
Ruddman crowd. I'm with the LP now because it's the easiest for me
to affect towards this direction, and has the best base to begin with.
|> But, of course, if you attempt to say that the reason people should become
|> libertarian because of Randian natural rights, you offend the Christian
|> libertarians; if you attempt to base libertarianism on "utilitarianism" you
|> offend those who believe in natural rights; if you say we need a small
|> state b/c God wanted it that way, you offend the atheists, etc., etc., etc.
I think this is only a Randian view. I'm not offended in the least by
atheists. As long as I am reasonably sure of their goals, I can work
with them.
|> So what you end up with are these glib, shallow one-liners that really
|> won't persuade anyone not half-way committed to small government ideas in
|> the first place -- but hey, at least you preserve party unity, right?
Ah, but political parties are not about persuasion. That's the role
for CATO, and so forth. Parties are there to mop up and organize.
Their role is like that of a military campaign. The army is not there
to persuade people to join the cause. It's there to fight as best as
it can to win as much as it can, given the number of people who
have joined.
|> >and the Dems are in total disarray. A moderate libertarian party
|> >would soar right now no matter what it's name was.
|> Actually, though, a number of GOP pols already fill this role, more or
|> less: Weld, Guilani, Riordian, Whitman, etc. ... hardly people who are
(you should read the article on Guilani's drive to get
rid of porn in NYC).
|> indebted to the religious right.
No, but they are indebted to a party that is indebted to the religious
right. Thus, a certain part of their agenda will have to be lost
if they want to be able to use the party as a power base. Either
that, or they have to reform the party altogether. If the former
then the question is "how much?" (IMHO the answer is "too much.")
If the latter then the question is "why not start from scratch?"
An analogy happened in IBM. A small division had some real success
with a given idea that went against some of the IBM grain (some
sort of Personal Computer concept that is now successful). But
when they tried to implement it with IBM the company structure just
couldn't do it because of it's Mainframe mentality. Eventually,
they had to defect to their own company to do it. While it was
a lot more difficult to start a whole new company from scratch,
it was more effective than trying to work within the existing one.
I view the LP (or some such party) as that new start up company.
There are still reformers in the GOP, but I've lost faith in the
possiblity of working within the GOP structure. For example, you're a
libertarian candidate. You can try to get 50% from nothing on the
LP or independent ticket (no party base to help really) or you can
get a 25-30% automatic GOP vote to work with, but you have to give
up some of your agenda to pacify various factions within the GOP
to get the candidacy. Furthermore, if you win, you'll be expected
to be loyal (defend mistakes/bad ideas of other party members, etc).
If you are not, you'll find your fundraising base drying up, as well
as any ascendency to leadership positions (which are needed if
you're going to move the party in some new direction). Weld, for
example, could not get a cent from the state GOP in MA because of
his more liberal stands. Since he was indpendently wealthy, he
could still run on his own. He and the state GOP have had a long
feud pacified only by the fact that he has been successful in office.
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| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT, Dept. OE | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (The Exchange) |
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| MIT LP: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/libertarians/home.html |
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