Tired of politics, especially after a two-week election thread? Sorry … instead of switching to a philosophical topic this week, I’m going political again. The brief message below is from David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party. Nolan invites debate. If not now, when? And if not us, who?
From: David F. Nolan
Subject: Once Again, The Horse Did Not Fly
When are we going to learn? In Tuesday’s elections, a grand total of eight Libertarians, out of more than 600 running, were elected to office — all at the state legislature level or lower. [www.lp.org/index_2006.html]
This is a success rate of about 1.3%. It is fairly typical of how we do, year after year. And yet a vociferous faction within the LP continues to say that our “primary mission” is to elect people to office.
This, I will submit, is stupid. When you define your mission as something you’re not good at, people stop taking you seriously after awhile. They conclude that you are either delusional or dishonest.
It is time for us to recognize, as we once did, that for the foreseeable future the primary mission of the Libertarian Party is NOT electing people to office.
In my 1971 article “The Case for a Libertarian Political Party,” I made this point very clear. [elfsoft.home.mindspring.com/politics/nolan.htm]
I reiterated this point in a speech I made to the 2006 convention of the Ohio Libertarian Party. You can read a summary of that speech (and listen to it in its entirety, if you are so inclined) at www.ernesthancock.com/archive/?2006-06-18-Bonus
I believe it is time for a wide-open, no-holds-barred debate on the role of the LP within the U.S. political system. We can continue pretending that we are going to teach the horse to fly (see Ohio speech), and watch our membership dwindle as people get frustrated and burn out, or we can redefine our mission as building a strong network of libertarians.
The choice is ours — but we can’t have it both ways.
Please relay this message to every libertarian you know. Post it on blogs and chat boards. Until this question is settled, the future of the LP will remain cloudy at best.
Yours for Liberty,
David F. Nolan
Go for it!
[Symposium format note: I’ve given up tinkering with forum software. One reason is that I haven’t been able to find a forum package that integrates with WordPress from a username/password standpoint — everyone would have to register all over again to use it. There are other issues of formatting for the same look, etc., as well. If the historical trend proves out, Rational Review will undergo an entire remodel some time in the next year or so, and I’ve already added integrated forums to the “requirements doc” in my head for that upgrade - TLK]
