Tough Luck... The Status Quo Bias Against Libertarian Ideas

blackascoal said:
AN ABSOLUTE TRUTH

Although I am not a libertarian .. the two-party duopoly is rigged against all 3rd parties.
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It certainly is, however, that's never stopped any motivated interest group from building ruling coalitions. How do you think radical southern conservatives were able to co-opt the GOP? Why do you think the modern Republican party has thrived while the Whigs went the way of the DoDo Bird? Cause the Republican party was better at building coalitions.

That's the major down fall of Libertarians. If they can't even build an influential let alone a ruling coalition with in one of the two major parties what makes you think they could run a succesful third party?

Blaming it on the two major parties is an excuse. The harsh truth is libertarians suck at building political coalitions that advance their ideals. They have no one to blame for that but themselves.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Again, a non-issue if Libertarians knew what they were doing. This building political coalition thing seems to be beyond them.
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Why? Both parties benefit with it as is. There is literally NO FUCKING REASON for them to "build a coalition" with libertarians. Why would they do something where they can only lose?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Again, a non-issue if Libertarians knew what they were doing. This building political coalition thing seems to be beyond them.
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I am no fan of libertarians .. which by the way could mean anything .. but it is not their ineptness that leeps them from the ballot .. it is both corporate-owned parties that keep Americans stuck between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum
 
blackascoal said:
The system is rigged to prevent anything but democratic and republican voices to be heard. They conspire together against ballot access.
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Absolutely they do but that doesn't stop one from being a major force within the two major parties. These two parties are not monolithic, despite what the talking heads and ideologues would have us believe. They are both coalition parties of often disparate interest groups. To be affective within either major party one must be able to build political coalitions with others groups who either share your views or at least don't oppose them. It's this part of the political process that libertarians truely suck at and are grossly inept. If they can't even build coalitions with in the major two parties that are affective what makes them think the can build a succesfull third party? Why can't libertarians build those sort of coalitions? Either because their ideas don't work or they are politically inept or both.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
It certainly is, however, that's never stopped any motivated interest group from building ruling coalitions. How do you think radical southern conservatives were able to co-opt the GOP? Why do you think the modern Republican party has thrived while the Whigs went the way of the DoDo Bird? Cause the Republican party was better at building coalitions.

That's the major down fall of Libertarians. If they can't even build an influential let alone a ruling coalition with in one of the two major parties what makes you think they could run a succesful third party?

Blaming it on the two major parties is an excuse. The harsh truth is libertarians suck at building political coalitions that advance their ideals. They have no one to blame for that but themselves.
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Much respect for you brother .. but I've been involved in ballot access issues for a lot of years. The corporate lock on the ballot keeps LOTS of groups and parties from building successful coalitions.

America's two-party system fails all voters

"Democracy is in peril!" The crocodile tears being shed by some Democrats in Pennsylvania over the voter ID law this year are salty, indeed. One only has to look back to 2004 to see why.

Pennsylvania has perhaps the most restrictive ballot access in the nation. A Democratic Party effort spearheaded by former representatives Bill DeWeese and Mike Veon worked successfully to keep a third-party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, off the ballot, an effort that, in part, landed both men in the hoosegow. Make no mistake -- the Democratic Party wants you to vote, just as long as it is for its candidate. The Republicans may be a little more open about their intentions in this regard. Pull the lever for a D or an R, none other need to apply.

We can't count on a commitment to democracy from either mainstream party. They're both quite happy with the status quo. We the people are looking at a presidential campaign that is estimated to cost $2 billion. The contest will focus on television ads directed primarily at a narrow slice of undecided swing-state voters. Nothing substantive will be discussed in this obscene ad campaign. Neither candidate will escape the grasp of Big Money once elected. The record shows that Barack Obama didn't since 2008, and Mitt Romney doesn't even try to fake any populist leanings.

Having the right and ability to vote is a far cry from having a candidate on the ballot that is worthy of that vote. The illusion of deciding the future of your country through the ballot box that was taught in your high school civics class fades quickly in the reality of a two-party, one-class lock on the choice of candidates.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...system-fails-all-voters-646938/#ixzz2cQZb9tmg
 
Mott, by simply refusing others ballot access it means that the parties can reject any attempt at a coalition with impunity. The TEA party movement has been the first somewhat affective means of actually affecting one of the major parties in a very long time. What did the major party do? Get upset that they weren't religious enough and try to take the movement over for the "religious right"?
 
blackascoal said:
I am no fan of libertarians .. which by the way could mean anything .. but it is not their ineptness that leeps them from the ballot .. it is both corporate-owned parties that keep Americans stuck between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum
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So why don't they work within the frame work of the two major parties, build political coalitions, create an agenda and advance that agenda within one of the major parties?

The Solid South social conservatives did that very effectively. When I was born it was socially unacceptable to be a white Republican in the south and now it is socially unacceptable to be a white Democrat in the South. The Solid South has remained The Solid South despite a whole scale change in party affiliation.

How did that happen? When Southern Conservatives rebelled against the national Democratic party on civil rights and created the Dixiecrat Party they soon learned that they were in an electorally impossible situation. So they worked skillfully and adroitly and building coalitions within the Republican party that led them to co-opting the Republican party so that it's went from being the Party of Capital to the Party of Southern Social Conservatives.

Now if those slack jawed yokels down south could figure that out.....why can't Libertarians?

Like I said, it's either cause their ideas suck or because they are politically inept or both.
 
Damocles said:
Mott, by simply refusing others ballot access it means that the parties can reject any attempt at a coalition with impunity. The TEA party movement has been the first somewhat affective means of actually affecting one of the major parties in a very long time. What did the major party do? Get upset that they weren't religious enough and try to take the movement over for the "religious right"?
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That's how coalition building works Damo. How do you think the new Republican Party of the 1850's was able to Replace the Whig Party? Co-opting and subverting other disparate interest groups is all part of the art of politics.

Libertarians just keep making excuses for their ineptitude instead of addressing the issues that prevent them from growing as a political force.

Like I said, if those slack jawed yokels in the South could completely subvert the modern GOP than how comes their more erudite Libertrarian brethern cannot?
 
blackascoal said:
Much respect for you brother .. but I've been involved in ballot access issues for a lot of years. The corporate lock on the ballot keeps LOTS of groups and parties from building successful coalitions.

America's two-party system fails all voters

"Democracy is in peril!" The crocodile tears being shed by some Democrats in Pennsylvania over the voter ID law this year are salty, indeed. One only has to look back to 2004 to see why.

Pennsylvania has perhaps the most restrictive ballot access in the nation. A Democratic Party effort spearheaded by former representatives Bill DeWeese and Mike Veon worked successfully to keep a third-party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, off the ballot, an effort that, in part, landed both men in the hoosegow. Make no mistake -- the Democratic Party wants you to vote, just as long as it is for its candidate. The Republicans may be a little more open about their intentions in this regard. Pull the lever for a D or an R, none other need to apply.

We can't count on a commitment to democracy from either mainstream party. They're both quite happy with the status quo. We the people are looking at a presidential campaign that is estimated to cost $2 billion. The contest will focus on television ads directed primarily at a narrow slice of undecided swing-state voters. Nothing substantive will be discussed in this obscene ad campaign. Neither candidate will escape the grasp of Big Money once elected. The record shows that Barack Obama didn't since 2008, and Mitt Romney doesn't even try to fake any populist leanings.

Having the right and ability to vote is a far cry from having a candidate on the ballot that is worthy of that vote. The illusion of deciding the future of your country through the ballot box that was taught in your high school civics class fades quickly in the reality of a two-party, one-class lock on the choice of candidates.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...system-fails-all-voters-646938/#ixzz2cQZb9tmg
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I don't necessarily disagree with you. The ruling coalition will always try to prevent other ruling coalitions from arizing but the fact is, as I've pointed out, they're not always succesful. You only need to see the drastic changes to both the two major parties over the last 40 years to see that. Successfull coalitions in our body politica are built all the time, Teabaggers but being just the most recent iteration. The fact that the Democratic and Republican party are substantially different parties than they were 40 years ago, is evidence of this fact.

If libertarians had their act together they could be just as influential in the GOP as the southern social conservative block currently is. Why haven't they done so?
 
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I'm sure there's a case to be made for expanded ballot access for third-party candidates, but focusing on presidential elections is really, really stupid.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That's how coalition building works Damo. How do you think the new Republican Party of the 1850's was able to Replace the Whig Party? Co-opting and subverting other disparate interest groups is all part of the art of politics.

Libertarians just keep making excuses for their ineptitude instead of addressing the issues that prevent them from growing as a political force.

Like I said, if those slack jawed yokels in the South could completely subvert the modern GOP than how comes their more erudite Libertrarian brethern cannot?
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No, you simply keep making excuses for the current corporate status quo and try to make up reasons why we should ignore the strangle hold of the two major parties have on the system. George Washington was right political parties have become exactly what he feared.
 
Mott, you are making all kinds of mistakes and you always seem to have some sort of irrational and emotional response to the word libertarian. I don't think you understand what it is any better than desh understands Austrian economics.

Name one government in history that is based on utilitarian principle that has ever worked? By that, I mean, based solely on utilitarian principle. You will not be able to because it is unworkable. Our nation is not based on it. It is based on a mix of mostly libertarian principles and some utilitarian principles.

As far as building coalitions, libertarians have effectively done so. You have some strange metric on this issue, and you would need to define libertarian and effective. The ACLU is mostly a libertarian organization. The neoconfederates will argue otherwise, but who says they are libertarians, and the ACLU has not always been supportive of civil liberties in commercial acts but they are still libertarian. The ACLU has been quite effective in securing our rights. There is now a coalition forming against the NSA and the surveillance state that will be mostly libertarian.
 
Dungheap said:
I'm sure there's a case to be made for expanded ballot access for third-party candidates, but focusing on presidential elections is really, really stupid.
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Your focus is on that. The Libertarian Party runs candidates for many lower offices. However, it is a mistake to assume that the Libertarian Party accounts for all libertarian political action or ideas.
 
Damocles said:
No, you simply keep making excuses for the current corporate status quo and try to make up reasons why we should ignore the strangle hold of the two major parties have on the system. George Washington was right political parties have become exactly what he feared.
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I'm not making excuses. That's what libertarians are doing. They can't look themselves in the mirror and say "This is what is wrong with our poitical movement and this is what we need to do to get something accomplished.". Instead they play the blame game and make excuses and remain what they currenlty are, fairly irrelevent.
 
Hey "Libertarians," tell me again how money talks and campaign contributions and lobbying are first amendment protected activity and how corporations have rights too all while bithcing about the "corporate status quo."

Hilarious.
 
Professor Baxter said:
Your focus is on that. The Libertarian Party runs candidates for many lower offices. However, it is a mistake to assume that the Libertarian Party accounts for all libertarian political action or ideas.
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I'm not focusing on anything. I'm responding to what people posted in this thread. BAC posted some nonsense about Nader not getting on the ballot in PA. Like I said, I'm sure a case can be made for expanded third-party ballot access and don't realyl disagree with the general idea. However, the idea that it's a great tragedy that twelve people were denied the opportunity to vote for Nader (or insert other candidate that will never win anything ever) for president makes me laugh.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I'm not making excuses. That's what libertarians are doing. They can't look themselves in the mirror and say "This is what is wrong with our poitical movement and this is what we need to do to get something accomplished.". Instead they play the blame game and make excuses and remain what they currenlty are, fairly irrelevent.
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What is relevant among the ruling philosophies of the two parties? Do you support all of it? If not then why do you think your ideas are relevant?
 
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