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- From: yamauchi@ces.cwru.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
- Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
- Subject: Do Pragmatic Libertarians Belong in LP or RLC? (was Re: Party line)
- Message-ID: <YAMAUCHI.93Jan25134701@yuggoth.ces.cwru.edu>
- Date: 25 Jan 93 21:47:01 GMT
- References: <parvin1.727938404@husc.harvard.edu> <C1F327.GD2@athena.cs.uga.edu>
- Organization: Case Western Reserve University
- Lines: 38
- NNTP-Posting-Host: yuggoth.ces.cwru.edu
- In-reply-to: brown@pollux's message of Mon, 25 Jan 1993 15:58:53 GMT
-
- In article <C1F327.GD2@athena.cs.uga.edu> brown@pollux (Daniel Brown) writes:
- >In article <parvin1.727938404@husc.harvard.edu> parvin1@husc11.harvard.edu (Douglas Parvin) writes:
- >>
- >>You can have your pure little party, safe from any internal strife... and safe
- >>from making any kind of impact whatsoever. You can require members to sign
- >>a pledge which, however you twist it, calls for the elimination of taxation,
- >>or something very close.
-
- >>You just will not represent a decent
- >>number of Americans, and will have alienated many that you could have
- >>represented better than anyone else.
-
- >If the only way to get LP members elected is to allow people who oppose the
- >libertarian philosophy to run for office as Libertarians, why should there
- >even be a Libertarian Party? If I just wanted people who are slightly less
- >socialist-leaning than the average to rule over me, I'd vote for Republican
- >Liberty Caucus members.
-
- This raises an interesting question -- do pragmatic libertarians
- belong in Libertarian Party or the Republican Liberty Caucus? I
- define a pragmatic libertarian to be anyone who falls in the
- libertarian quadrant (supporting civil liberties and free enterprise)
- but who is not a non-coercion absolutist.
-
- These are people who are equally offended at Buchananesqe cultural
- warfare, Quaylist family values, tax-and-spend Clintonomics, and Gorey
- environmental extremism -- but who perhaps support some (substantially
- reduced) taxes or some (of the less brain-damaged) government programs
- and subsidies.
-
- Any RLC members out there want to share honest opinions on their
- chances for having a real effect on GOP politics?
- --
- _______________________________________________________________________________
-
- Brian Yamauchi Case Western Reserve University
- yamauchi@alpha.ces.cwru.edu Department of Computer Engineering and Science
- _______________________________________________________________________________
-