Splitoff from libertarian party

How is giving people a drivers license that identifies them really going to end the world? We already had an ID - driver's licenses - stop putting on your tinfoil hats, it isn't a big deal, and it could help law enforcement.
 
The LP was vague on drug laws, I didn't know they wanted them all repealed. That's unworkable, and probably not a very good idea, as some substances are simply too strong a tampering with the human mind and replace all other desires. Marijuania is not such a substance.

Repealing the income tax would also be retarded - that would only leave us with the tariff, and even if we cut a trillion dollars off of our government that would leave us rather wrecked.

So you have two good points there. I assumed this was some sort of attempt to keep the radical stances of the old LP.

Hey wait, you need to add proportional representation. PR is awesome.
 
watermark, I agree and I disagree. One the one hand, if you want progress you have to make compromises, blah blah blah etc... or at the very least lie, pretend you are making compromises and just do what you want...

But at the same time, you have to have principles, and if you truly don't believe in something, you shouldn't give in.
 
Well, I don't truly believe meth should be legalized, nor do I truly believe in a flat tax, so it's not like I'm giving in.

It's better to have a moderate libertarian party in office than a radical one out of it in your case anyway, though.
 
Thomas L. Knapp said:
LadyT,

You write:

"Is it really the guy that started it? i thought someone was kidding at first, but I can't place the 'voice.'"

Yes, I'm really the guy who started it. If you want to confirm that for certain, drop a line to info@bostontea.us and I'll reply. I'll probably also link to this thread from my blog at some point as well, for additional confidence that I am who I say I am.

I do so love a lady with a suspicious mind!

Regards,
Tom Knapp
Click to expand...

Interestingly enough, first full day of school today. When asked what they would like to know more about regarding 'history', my 6th and 7th graders gave the highest hit counter to the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre. The 8th grade wanted to know how to change social studies to only current events. I dinged them to repeat Civil War and Reconstruction. ;)
 
Watermark,

You write: "I just think that splitting off and creating an even more extreme party"

Do you have any reason for claiming that the Boston Tea Party is "more extreme" than the Libertarian Party"?

"because of the fact that the LP dared to moderate their positions"

What makes you think that the LP "moderated" its positions?

What the LP actually did was dump 3/4 of the specific planks in its platform, leaving in place the overarching introductory language that is, in many cases, more "extreme" than what was eliminated.

"is a bad idea."

Maybe so ... but just saying it doesn't prove it.

"If the party ever gets off the ground"

Already happened.

"it will go nowhere, just as the libertarian party,"

If the Libertarian Party went nowhere, then why are you so upset about people leaving it?

"and if it does field people for elections it will hurt the movement as a whole."

Do you have any particular reason for believing that?

"There's little reason to split off."

That's a determination for the people considering doing so to make.

"We don't want to end up like the socialists, with thirty or forty different 'splinter' parties and even less electoral success than the libertarians have."

The socialists have one Socialist Party member in the US House of Representatives, and probably on his way to the Senate (Bernie Sanders). They also have about 100 members of Democratic Socialists of America in Congress (all Democrats) and a number of current or former members of Social Democrats USA/Socialist Party of America in the executive branch (mostly Republicans). In the 20th century, they achieved the implementation of a good part of their platform, including but not limited to Social Security (passed by the Democrats under pressure from the Norman Thomas incarnation of the Socialist Party), socialized healthcare for the aged and indigent (Medicare and Medicaid), the minimum wage, broad protection for labor unions, etc.

I'd give my left nut to be HALF as successful in the next hundred years as the socialists were in the last hundred.

"How is giving people a drivers license that identifies them really going to end the world?"

Who said it would? Even if it wouldn't, opposition to a surveillance-oriented state is not inherently extremist or unreasonable. A number of states have complained about the costs of implementing "REAL ID," and there's a pretty good historical case on the tendency of the federal government to abuse personal information.

"The LP was vague on drug laws, I didn't know they wanted them all repealed. That's unworkable ..."

It worked in the United States for more than 100 years, but that's beside the point. The Boston Tea Party is only worried, at least at the programmatic level and at least for now, about marijuana. Last time I looked, more than 800,000 Americans were being arrested over marijuana "crimes" every year. That's very stupid on just about every level imaginable. It's a violation of their rights, it's a waste of taxpayer money, it's a misallocation of law enforcement resources, etc.

"Repealing the income tax would also be retarded - that would only leave us with the tariff ..." Actually, per the old LP platform, it wouldn't leave us with the tariff, either. The old LP platform advocated the elimination of <em>all</em> taxation. I'm not sure what the new one says.

Of course, the US made it without an income tax until 1913, and without a substantial income tax until World War II. That was before most Americans became convinced that the federal government absolutely must kiss them awake every morning, tuck them in at night, and hold their hands and wipe their asses for them every minute in between. There are actually very few things that the federal government arguably should be doing, and most of them it's spending far too much money on (if our "defense" spending was actually being spent on defense, we could probably cut the "defense" budget by at least 50-75% ).

But, the BTP wants to take an incremental approach -- small tax cuts every year, from the bottom up. That way Congress has time to cut spending incrementally to match as well, and people who are relying on services that the federal government shouldn't be in the business of providing have time to seek other providers of those services.

"Hey wait, you need to add proportional representation. PR is awesome."

Well, per our bylaws, we are limited to a maximum of five issues in our program. A lot of us are fans of PR, though. It might make the cut next time (we create a new program every two years -- the function of the program is to tell voters "here is what we would do for you in the next two years if you elected a congressional majority of our party").

"I assumed this was some sort of attempt to keep the radical stances of the old LP"

Sort of, but not exactly. We recognize that incremental approaches are good for some issues. What we wanted to keep was the principled approach of the old party. The arguments are actually pretty complicated, but if you're really interested, I can point you to some articles that explain them a bit better (both sides).

Grind, regarding compromise, here's a little ditty I wrote about why it's not a good idea for libertarians.

Thanks for the great discussion, y'all ... I'm having a lot of fun here.

Regards,
Tom Knapp
 
"The socialists have one Socialist Party member in the US House of Representatives, and probably on his way to the Senate (Bernie Sanders)."

Bernie Sanders is and independent associated with the Progressive party of Vermont, which is leftist but not another socialist party.
 
The sign of a mature party is the ability to be diverse and change the bylaws without creating 30 new parties every few years. That's the only way the libertarians will succeed. The Boston Tea Party movement will be better off as a caucus of the Libertarian party than as a member of the list of 100 insignificant third parties that currently exist. The Libertarian party is practically insignifigant, but adding vote-splitting (and the illusion to voters of a disunified front in the movement) wouldn't be good for the movement as a whole. The Demopublicans don't form new parties every time they have a disagreement, they just vote differently and create new caucuses. If the libertarians shed off a new party every few years they aren't going to last much longer.
 
Watermark,

If you want me to stop responding to every sentence of yours with ten paragraphs about how you're wrong ... then stop being wrong. Actually, though, in most cases I've merely asked you why you think what it is that you think, and in others I agree with you. Is this a discussion board, or is it a "Watermark says what he thinks and we all nod in agreement" board?

As far as Sanders is concerned, you were right and I was wrong. I thought he was affiliated with a party that had socialist in his name, and I was incorrect. However, he IS a socialist. That's not intended as a criticism. It's just how he describes himself.

On the caucus issue: I proposed, at the Boston Tea Party's organizational convention, that we re-enter the Libertarian Party as a caucus rather than attempting to become a full-fledged political party. That proposal was defeated by a vote of better than 80%. Whether I'm happy about that or not is irrelevant -- I started the thing, and in doing so I obligated myself to stick with it through that decision.

The Demopublicans spin off new parties all the time. In 1912, the Republicans spun off the Bull Moose. In 1948, the Dixiecrats carried nine states with Strom Thurmond as their candidate (but still didn't cost Truman the election). The Greens are at least partially a splinter of the Democrats, and the Constitution Party is essentially a chip off the GOP block. And they have their own splinters as well, just as the LP always has. If the LP is on the right track, the BTP will gain no traction. If the BTP does gain traction, then the LP is free to compete with it. I'd advise the LP (and certainly advise the BTP) to concentrate on the 100-odd million voters who comprise the American electorate, rather than bitching about the fact that a few people in their small group have decided to go a different way. I'm relatively certain that both parties will take that advice.

Regards,
Tom Knapp
 
Thomas L. Knapp said:
Watermark,

If you want me to stop responding to every sentence of yours with ten paragraphs about how you're wrong ... then stop being wrong. Actually, though, in most cases I've merely asked you why you think what it is that you think, and in others I agree with you. Is this a discussion board, or is it a "Watermark says what he thinks and we all nod in agreement" board?


Regards,
Tom Knapp
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LOL...!

:lolup:
 
"Of course, the US made it without an income tax until 1913, and without a substantial income tax until World War II. That was before most Americans became convinced that the federal government absolutely must kiss them awake every morning, tuck them in at night, and hold their hands and wipe their asses for them every minute in between"

It also directly coincides with the creation and buildup of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower became so alarmed about.

Also, I'd argue that Americans became convinced of no such thing. Do we need to go point by point through the preceding years, and the devestation? Perhaps you'd like to harken back to social programs which proceeded the new deal, say perhaps the civil war pension program? What would have happened without that program? What happened when most who could qualify for it were dead? Was it inevitable that another old age pension program would have to be instituted? Was there ever a time when Americans simply pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, or, were social programs under many different guises, including pre-civil war patronage, always in effect?

And since the rise of the modern welfare state took place along side the rise of the military industrial complex, is that more than coincidence? Could you have all guns and no butter in America, or would the people revolt? Is it a case of, give them that so they don't notice this? And if so, can you ever hope to do away with, or even to drastically cut back the modern welfare state, while at the same time continuting to enlarge the military industrial complex? And is anyone ever going to be able to cut that, most powerful of all entities, back? Unlikely. In fact, it's a dream.
 
I don't see how standardizing requirements for state issued drivers licenses is a bad thing. The real ID act would open up communications from state to state and can be of real value when investigating individuals. Yes. Its true, the terrorists that perpetrated 9/11 were here legally. That doesn't mean that the next would be terrorists wouldn't try to use phony id's to obtain the necessities to pull of something else because of establisted safeguards since. I don't support unlawful searches or anything that resembles a big brother society like the patriot act, but there are parts of the real ID act I think can be useful in fighting crime in general and the war on terror. I've often said that the WOT is a war of information.
 
Runyon said:
Interestingly enough, first full day of school today. When asked what they would like to know more about regarding 'history', my 6th and 7th graders gave the highest hit counter to the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre. The 8th grade wanted to know how to change social studies to only current events. I dinged them to repeat Civil War and Reconstruction. ;)
Click to expand...

Is that you leaning?
 
Darla,

You write:

"[The universalization of a significant income tax] also directly coincides with the creation and buildup of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower became so alarmed about."

Oh, you noticed that, too?

I think there may be some cognitive dissonance here to the extent that libertarians are often perceived as "right-wingers" who support William F. Buckley's "totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" versus the Communists or whichever boogie-man is convenient.

In fact, most libertarians (including of the Libertarian Party variety) support cuts in "defense" spending. They're not always specific as to what cuts, but they occasionally have been. In 2004, LP presidential candidate Michael Badnarik proposed reducing the Army's active-duty ground forces to one division, with the rest as militia/reserve; eliminating the Air Force (rolling its strategic bombing capability and missile component into the Army, and its tactical air into Naval aviation); slightly augmenting the Marine Corps and making it the official RDF/"first responder" ground force; and cutting the Navy to seven carriers and attached battle groups (last time I noticed, they were bringing carrier #13 online).

Of course, much of the money doesn't go directly into military equipment and activity -- most of the military-industrial complex is outsourced and the money drained off via the contractors who provide that equipment. Procurement obviously needs to be reformed in a big way ... and right now, we're going in the opposite direction, per the prescriptions of the Hart-Rudman report, which 9/11 made it politically feasible to implement.

Not sure I have any solutions to offer, but yes, I'm aware of the problem (here's something I wrote on it several years ago).

Next: "Perhaps you'd like to harken back to social programs which proceeded the new deal, say perhaps the civil war pension program? What would have happened without that program? What happened when most who could qualify for it were dead? Was it inevitable that another old age pension program would have to be instituted? Was there ever a time when Americans simply pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, or, were social programs under many different guises, including pre-civil war patronage, always in effect?"

Good points, all, although I wouldn't link the rise of Social Security to the demise of the Civil War pension program. There were a lot of other factors: Bismarck's Germany led the way, the labor movement raised the level of expectations, the Bonus Marchers made it clear that they expected more than what they'd received for their service, and the Depression had everyone feeling pretty damn insecure in general. It's not especially surprising that government social programs were the order of the day (that started under Hoover, who essentially proposed the New Deal -- FDR actually ran in 1932 on a platform of cutting the federal government by 25% and balancing the budget, then proceeded with a mix of proposals that Hoover and Norman Thomas had been pushing instead).

It was in the post-WWII era, though, that Americans seem to have lulled themselves into accepting the proposition that the "safety net" must be continually expanded to cover all aspects of life ... and you're right. Much of that lulling was due to the military-industrial complex's inherent penchant for expanding its tentacles into a schema of overall control. Bread and circuses, as long as the contractors get theirs, too.

Like I said, I don't have any clear plan to offer you for cutting the military-industrial complex off at the knees. Matter of fact, I think that that will probably only happen when the US government finally defaults on its debts, can no longer borrow hand over fist in order to keep the pork flowing, and sees the peasants with pitchforks coming to make it clear that they aren't footing the bill any more.

Regards,
Tom Knapp
 
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LadyT:

"I don't see how standardizing requirements for state issued drivers licenses is a bad thing."

The legitimate purpose of a driver's license is to prove that the person carrying it has passed tests of driving competency. For that purpose, there's no need for it to identify the person carrying it beyond establishing that that person is the person who owns it. That could be accomplished with nothing more than a fingerprint on the document. If the person carrying it has a fingerprint that matches, then he's driving legally. The police don't have to know his name, address or anything else unless they're arresting him for something (in which case he has no obligation to give them that information -- 5th Amendment, remember?).

Until a few years ago, American movie audiences laughed at the clownish, strutting Nazis on the screen running around demanding "your papers." They were right to do so, and the notion that they should put up with that kind of Gestapo bullshit for real instead of as a joke in a movie is repugnant to everything America is about. The government has no inherent right to know who I am on demand. If they're accusing me of a crime, they can do the investigative work to figure out who I am. If they're not investigating me for a crime, who I am is none of their friggin' business, regardless of how "valuable" such information might be to them.

Regards,
Tom Knapp
 
Thomas L. Knapp said:
Darla,

You write:

"[The universalization of a significant income tax] also directly coincides with the creation and buildup of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower became so alarmed about."

Oh, you noticed that, too?

I think there may be some cognitive dissonance here to the extent that libertarians are often perceived as "right-wingers" who support William F. Buckley's "totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" versus the Communists or whichever boogie-man is convenient.

In fact, most libertarians (including of the Libertarian Party variety) support cuts in "defense" spending. They're not always specific as to what cuts, but they occasionally have been. In 2004, LP presidential candidate Michael Badnarik proposed reducing the Army's active-duty ground forces to one division, with the rest as militia/reserve; eliminating the Air Force (rolling its strategic bombing capability and missile component into the Army, and its tactical air into Naval aviation); slightly augmenting the Marine Corps and making it the official RDF/"first responder" ground force; and cutting the Navy to seven carriers and attached battle groups (last time I noticed, they were bringing carrier #13 online).

Of course, much of the money doesn't go directly into military equipment and activity -- most of the military-industrial complex is outsourced and the money drained off via the contractors who provide that equipment. Procurement obviously needs to be reformed in a big way ... and right now, we're going in the opposite direction, per the prescriptions of the Hart-Rudman report, which 9/11 made it politically feasible to implement.

Not sure I have any solutions to offer, but yes, I'm aware of the problem (here's something I wrote on it several years ago).

Next: "Perhaps you'd like to harken back to social programs which proceeded the new deal, say perhaps the civil war pension program? What would have happened without that program? What happened when most who could qualify for it were dead? Was it inevitable that another old age pension program would have to be instituted? Was there ever a time when Americans simply pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, or, were social programs under many different guises, including pre-civil war patronage, always in effect?"

Good points, all, although I wouldn't link the rise of Social Security to the demise of the Civil War pension program. There were a lot of other factors: Bismarck's Germany led the way, the labor movement raised the level of expectations, the Bonus Marchers made it clear that they expected more than what they'd received for their service, and the Depression had everyone feeling pretty damn insecure in general. It's not especially surprising that government social programs were the order of the day (that started under Hoover, who essentially proposed the New Deal -- FDR actually ran in 1932 on a platform of cutting the federal government by 25% and balancing the budget, then proceeded with a mix of proposals that Hoover and Norman Thomas had been pushing instead).

It was in the post-WWII era, though, that Americans seem to have lulled themselves into accepting the proposition that the "safety net" must be continually expanded to cover all aspects of life ... and you're right. Much of that lulling was due to the military-industrial complex's inherent penchant for expanding its tentacles into a schema of overall control. Bread and circuses, as long as the contractors get theirs, too.

Like I said, I don't have any clear plan to offer you for cutting the military-industrial complex off at the knees. Matter of fact, I think that that will probably only happen when the US government finally defaults on its debts, can no longer borrow hand over fist in order to keep the pork flowing, and sees the peasants with pitchforks coming to make it clear that they aren't footing the bill any more.

Regards,
Tom Knapp
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I'm impressed you wrote that when you did. Very.

You and I are going to greatly differ on the social safety net and the need for it, but I certainly would wish you luck in cutting the military budget. Unfortutely, I agree with your final paragraph though.
 
IHateGovernment said:
This guy's gonna steal my thunder I have a feeling.
Click to expand...


Did you read that piece he wrote on Sept 28th, 2001? Not only prescient, but brave considering you could be tarred and feathered for publically questioning, well, anything, at that time.

I could go ten rounds with him on the necessity and humanity of the modern welfare state, and how it evolved, and then began to devolve, but I'm impressed with his writings on the other matter, which I find to be an even bigger cause of misery and inhumanity.
 
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