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Journal by khallow
Given how often libertarians are mentioned here, I thought this would be interesting. And maybe there's some people with a lot more insight into what's going on.
A few months back (May 29), the national leadership of the Libertarian Party (the "Big L" political party, not the "small l" belief system) was taken over by a group called the "Mises Caucus". While their platform seems to be a mundane version of a normal platform.
In recent days, there's several state level "rebellions" which seems to indicate that the schism between the old guard and them isn't going away any time soon.
For me, they do seem to tilt at absolutist windmills rather than do stuff they want done - which is a common libertarian flaw. And the implicit emphasis on Mises economics is a huge problem for me. Their stance against vaccination and supporting Trump's allegations of election fraud seem pretty shifty.
OTOH, the previous leadership didn't seem all that interested in libertarianism. Maybe this will shake things up in a useful way?
So what are peoples' takes on this?
A few months back (May 29), the national leadership of the Libertarian Party (the "Big L" political party, not the "small l" belief system) was taken over by a group called the "Mises Caucus". While their platform seems to be a mundane version of a normal platform.
In recent days, there's several state level "rebellions" which seems to indicate that the schism between the old guard and them isn't going away any time soon.
For me, they do seem to tilt at absolutist windmills rather than do stuff they want done - which is a common libertarian flaw. And the implicit emphasis on Mises economics is a huge problem for me. Their stance against vaccination and supporting Trump's allegations of election fraud seem pretty shifty.
OTOH, the previous leadership didn't seem all that interested in libertarianism. Maybe this will shake things up in a useful way?
So what are peoples' takes on this?
What's happening with the US Libertarian Party?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
squatcho, n.:
The button at the top of a baseball cap.
-- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 20 2022, @08:49AM (3 children)
The problem isn't money - it's power. Money just happens to be a form of that. For example, over the past couple of centuries there has been a steady stream of bureaucrats with considerable unaccountable power, and more or less democratic and/or public benefit mandates.
Some have been relatively positive like post-war infrastructure builders in Japan (Shinji SogÅ [wikipedia.org] who was the force behind the creation of the bullet trains or the early MITI [wikipedia.org] (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) leaders). But a bunch have been negative in impact (such as US examples: Boss Tweed [wikipedia.org], William Mulholland [wikipedia.org], or J. Edgar Hoover [wikipedia.org]). And then there's been the truly heinous, such as Nazi Germany's Theodor Eicke [wikipedia.org] who among other things organized the concentration camps that killed so many people in the Second World War.
Every one of these found some way to subvert the checks and balances on their power. Sogo borrowed money from the World Bank to make the bullet trains resistant to budgetary control by the government. MITI exerted more than four decades of control over the entire Japanese industry that continued through to the collapse of the Japanese real estate market at the end of the 1980s. Boss Tweed ran the New York City Tammany Hall political machine and had immense private wealth and influence in addition. Mulholland ran a very independent Los Angeles Water Department. This ended when one [wikipedia.org] of the dams in his system collapsed killing over 400 people. Hoover was notorious for being a ruthless power not beholden to any US president. It was rumored that he had a vast amount of blackmail material and may have in turn been blackmailed by the Mafia about which activities he was frequently blind. And Theodor Eicke insured that the primary control bureaucracies of the Third Reich, the secret police/surveillance, the Gestapo, didn't have sway inside the camps.
There's a lot of people with those resources and they would not be unified in their interests. One big thing missed here is that democracies all have separation of powers. Nobody does everything even in a niche. There's always some check on that power. The business sector is another such separation of powers. That we can complain about the power of money is a demonstration of this separation of powers in effect.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:25PM (2 children)
*yawn*
Just some weird jumble to try and convince people that money isn't really the problem (spoiler, it is) paired with some crap about private business being another check on government. You really love the oligarchy, but most everyone knows that about you by now.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 20 2022, @10:25PM (1 child)
In other words, the above is a weird jumble for you have feelz about money. It annoys me when otherwise intelligent people go full stupid just because they can't come up with a rebuttal. Money didn't make my bureaucrats powerful. The state did.
It's pretty obvious when you think about it rather than just dismiss it. Everyone agrees that businesses are powerful. They aren't governments, have a diverse spread of interests, and can be sued. It's a considerable breaking up of all that power.
I guess you're not most everyone!
As to the barglegab about money, money isn't magic. It's very easy to defeat - take the money away and you just took its power away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:28PM
Which is the trick, after all.
Given that those who benefit the most from money in elections (incumbents), are the ones that need to change the process to remove the money, that's easier said than done.
And we've further enabled such shenanigans with stuff like the Citizen's United v. FEC [wikipedia.org] decision.
When money isn't a driving force in successful elections, we can have a broader selection of voices in our government, hopefully one that focuses on the needs of constituencies, not large corporations and the wealthiest among us.
This is a structural issue in our political system that needs reforming.
You say it's easy to do. What specific, actionable suggestions do you have for getting the money out of the political system?
N.B.: I'm not the AC you replied do, so please don't saddle me with the bullshit they're spewing -- it's not me.