Do you think the Libertarian Party has been hijacked? (poll)

[notsure]

As of Nov 5th 2013.
Yes: 33
No: 9

 

[darkstar725]

Pretty sure any liberty movement that begins to show some steam will ultimately be high-jacked...or at least have an attempt at it. If you're suggesting that the Sarvis candidacy is an indicator of this, I certainly wouldn't argue; but for those of us that are paying attention (and I would opine that most Libertarians are), this shouldn't be too hard to spot. If you were the type who misjudged the likes of Marco Rubio or even Ted Cruz however, you could be very well setting yourself up for a let down...

And FTR, I didn't vote in this poll because I don't really agree with either of the two choices...but then again, this is a feeling I'm all too familiar with.

 

[erowe1]

Why do polls never seem to include the right choice?

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Speaking for the party, I'll say LP originally brought together a coalition of minarchists, anarchists, constitutionalists, and miscellaneous individualists. The consistency of the non-aggression principle that unifies them has never been in question, just the consistency (or agreement over) its application. Some anarchist Libertarians believe there is no just entity called the state at all, thus there are no real borders, a view that leads to the open borders view of immigration.

Some libertarians think there is no difference between social tolerance (in the movement's support of personal liberty, regardless of controversy) and endorsing social liberalism outright (approving of the behavior, and passing laws to force everybody else to). Some think of the ideology as being domestic only, thus (wrongly) do not tie the non-aggression principle to foreign policy. And so on.

I think some are holding the LP to a higher standard than they do for GOP persons who much more wildly vary in their embrace of 'conservative' policy. The fact is, we were open-minded enough about Barr to once nominate him for President (out of respect for his time spent in our party, and for once being a senior elected official), but he has revealed himself over time to not be a consistent Libertarian. The Kochs at one point appeared to want to drive the party as its controlled vehicle, but they were purged from influence. A stray figure here and there may appear in the party to try to hijack it away from its core agenda, but the agenda wins as a rule.

 

[wgadget]

The LP is being used as a club to beat true patriotic conservatives, by the RINODEMS.

 

[darkstar725]

BTW, exit polls showed that if those who voted for Sarvis had to choose between the McAuliffe or the Cucinelli they would've voted for McAuliffe by a 2 to 1 margin. hxxp://ideas.time.com/2013/11/06/stop-scapegoating-third-party-candidates-for-election-results/

 

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

 

[NoOneButPaul]

I hope it did... it's time for real Libertarians to wise up and come help us do the same thing to the Neo-Conned controlled GOP.

 

[philipped]

Sarvis is not classified as a "hijack" in my opinion. STOP CALLING HIM A SPOILER TOO. I don't know too much about Bob Barr, The Koch Brothers were deemed as being responsible for the Gov. Shutdown by one of my friends on the left. All I know is, the more people are bringing up these types of ideas and concepts into the discussion, the merrier for now. Let them do them, if you believe in building the Libertarian party go for it, however the way it gets done, it gets done. If you believe in building up the libertarian faction of the GOP, then please continue to do so, it is definitely working. I'm rooting for anybody going for limiting government in it's spending and it's limiting people from living their lives as they choose too.

 

[acptulsa]

The LP is being used as a club to beat true patriotic conservatives, by the RINODEMS.

By both, actually, the RINOs and the Dems.

Virginia proved that. When the GOP makes the mistake of nominating a RINO (as they often do) then the Democrats seem all too willing to split the anti-progressive vote by inserting a LINO Democrat activist into the local LP and financing a run for him.

This does not mean I consider every LP branch everywhere to be compromised. But it has obviously been compromised in spots, locally and nationally, and I think we can reasonably expect more of the same in the future.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I'm just going to stick to my statement elsewhere that libertarianism has become the stalking horse for fascism.

Although, I think that many genuine libertarians are becoming more aware of what is happening and are able to see the phenomenon better. Which is a good thing.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Absolutely!

Though it seems to me that the Libertarian Party has been an open-borders party for quite a while, I don't have nearly as much of a problem with that as I have with the pro-war "neolibertarians" (pro-war libertarian is a complete oxymoron, IMHO).

I agree. Immigration has always been an issue that libertarians could disagree on. Among those of us who are anarcho-capitalist libertarians, we would ultimately support elimination of borders, although there is still some disagreement on how immigration should work in a statist world as a "lesser evil" sort of thing.

I honestly care very, very little about this issue. I understand there are some who are passionate about it on both sides, but I'm really not. On the one hand, I see no justification for preventing anyone that isn't a threat in any way from coming into the country. On the other hand, I don't want immigrants coming in and voting for statism, and I obviously don't want anyone to take welfare. So I'd be cool with letting anyone immigrate here, but limiting citizenship to people who have spent most of their childhood here (This is all "Lesser evil" stuff as well, obviously my ideal is to eliminate the State and everything it entails.)

That said, the LP has seemed very, very liberal lately. On the "ISideWith" test I was WAY more libertarian than the LP, despite really only being able to answer as a minarchist.

 

[Tywysog Cymru]

I liked Johnson last year, but now I'm not very impressed with him.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

That said, the LP has seemed very, very liberal lately. On the "ISideWith" test I was WAY more libertarian than the LP, despite really only being able to answer as a minarchist.

And five years ago, when the party went with Barr-Root, it was deemed very, very conservative lately. The approach of many within the party since then has been to stay away from anything that remotely smells of neocon, and recruit members based on the dumbed down, misleading "fiscally conservative, socially tolerant" model of libertarianism. So the party candidates of the Johnson mold tend to talk exactly like economic conservatives on money issues, and exactly like social liberals on cultural issues. The approach makes people think the LP has gone liberal (esp. when looking at its candidates' social stances), when all that's happened is its recruiting outreach is currently trending towards engaging left-libertarians.

 

[Christian Liberty]

I liked Johnson last year, but now I'm not very impressed with him.

Me too. I was a lot more moderate last year, and at the time I had the naive view that the Libertarian Party was actually Libertarian.

If we had the same candidates right now, would I still vote for Johnson? I might. But it would be a pure protest vote. I wouldn't actually particularly want Johnson for President, although he'd still be far better than any Repuiblican that has a shot other than Rand Paul.

 

[Natural Citizen]

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