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Monday, October 04, 2004Forget those tired 'old-party hacks'; Vote Libertarian Why waste a vote for the lunatic politics of the past? Why "waste a vote" on the two parties? For the simple reason that the Libertarian Party has no idea where or how it wants to lead America. I love great opinion pieces such as this. A great letter to the editor in today's Free Lance-Star: Robotically, the proponents of state socialism have been battling back and forth on these letters pages, all claiming only their version of socialism has all the answers to solve America's problems.Now I've had this discussion amongst some of my political friends about how modern liberalism and modern conservativism are really two sides of the same political philosophy. This having been said, I was genuinely interested when Michael Badnarik, a pro-life libertarian, won his party's nomination. Sadly, the moment he won, he was approached by pro-abortion libertarians who effectively threw down the gauntlet. Badnarik wilted, and suddenly our pro-life libertarian became yet another apologist for special interests. The one problem that I have with the Libertarian Party is that they don't believe anything, and what they do believe hardly fulfills the requirements for the safe and effective operation of society. Consider for a moment Badnarik's position on the 2nd Amendment and his opposition to the war in Iraq. At the University of Virginia, Badnarik was asked whether or not his interpretation of the 2nd Amendment allowed for private individuals to own nuclear weapons. Badnarik's answer was that nuclear weapons, VX gas, and other such weapons provide a "clear and present danger" to society. Weapons such as firearms do not provide such a threat, and he went further to say that the only time society has a right to disarm an individual is when that person meets the test of providing a "clear and present danger," going so far as to provide a scenario where a neighbor was killing cats, beating his kids, and threatening his fellow neighbors. Now I didn't get the chance to ask this, but let's say that fellow lives in Baghdad. . . he beats and tortures his citizens, he may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, he has invaded his neighbors and threatened to do more of the same. Do you disarm him? To me, that is a fatal inconsistency, not to mention a flaw in libertarian thinking. In addition, just as American liberalism (which is anything but liberal) and American conservativism (Russell Kirk's approach to New Deal socialism that would mobilize America to defeat communism) are two sides of the same socialist coin, where is the consistency in libertarian thinking? Shall we side with the Ayn Rand objectivists (Randroids as they are euphemistically called), the anarchists, the classical liberals? I've written on the topic of libertarianism and the special thread of libertarian ethics that can be found within Catholic Scholasticism. Many others have as well, and I am of the very clear opinion that until the Libertarian Party begins to embrace some of the tenets of the scholastic era, it will never become a cohesive force in American politics. Is a Libertarian vote a waste of a vote? Clearly no, and especially not if they are close to garnering the 5% necessary to get federal funding (or even better, the 10% nationwide to be included in the national debates). But ah... would the Libertarian Party accept federal funds for political campaigning? The Libertarian Party needs to resolve itself on some of the more vital issues of our time. One cannot remain neutral on abortion. Can the LP stand up against it's pro-abortion wing and support life as an inalienable right? Or does it fall victim to precisely the same reduction of human beings as objects that makes socialism palatable? What about Just War Doctrine? Is all war bad, or are there times when the libertarian state must exercise its martial arm - even pre-emptively? To what degree should the government use it's influence on the economy to stem the tides of recessions and depressions? With regards to the Federal Reserve, how can we use only the gold standard as the benchmark for the American dollar, when history demonstrates that even gold has radically fluxed in price over the centuries (i.e. the 16th century Spanish conquest of Latin America). Too many questions that the LP disagrees on, and questions that deserve concrete answers; not a philosophic wave of the hand regarding how great it is for these opinions can co-exist within a party. They clearly and demonstrably cannot co-exist, because their answers radically divide the polity into opposing camps with clear differences in what they believe and value. In short, I empathize with Mr. Montoni about the state of government. But until the Libertarian Party clearly demonstrates that it has a clear path for American governance, it will never be a clear alternative to the two-party system.
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JEFFERSONIAD POLL: Whom do you support for Virginia Attorney General?1) John Brownlee2) Ken Cuccinelli AboutShaunKenney.com is one of Virginia's oldest political blogs, focusing on the role of religion and politics in public life. Shaun Kenney, 30, lives in Fluvanna County, Virginia.ContactThe Jeffersoniad
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