After giving considerable thought, I have decided to return to the Libertarian Party. I left before when they watered down their platform to give in to the religious right. I watched the opening speeches last night for the LP Conference in Denver and found a new energy coming from the party.
They now reflect the words of Harry Browne and wanting the social issues sent back to the states. The convention mentions the names of Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul and Ayn Rand. These are the heros in my world and my trying to discuss Capitalism here has brought only bad reactions.
I will work for individual freedoms and a limited government until they spread my ashes under a oak tree. At least my ashes will be free.
I absolutely believe in Evolution and it hurts me to see our human species dissolving into puppets of some political agenda. We can, and we must rise above this rotten government and rebuild our freedoms based on the Constitution not some sky daddy.
39 thoughts on “A return to the Libertarian Party”
Ron Paul for President.
https://www.truthout.org/article/interview-with-congressman-ron-paul
— Kent Shaw
It was ratified by over 3/4 of the states so it was properly ratified. (mumble… mutter…)
— Kent Shaw
Kent, I will bring you the information on the ratification of the 16th Amendment. My source is in court all week but can furnish what you need. The Federal Courts are filled with law suits based on the deniers of the 16th and many of the people who think as you do and act on it are in prison. Wesley Snipes is the last one. Over the weekend I will contact my source and bring the information hers.
Pollchecker I have contacted the LP and if they are going to remain firm on a dozen agenda items, I will vote for Barr. I do not like Barr but he is the chosen candidate. I’m an agenda voter.
Sandra — I am curious. Are you saying that you are seriously considering voting for Bob Barr?
“Income tax is not the focus of the LP.”
Agreed.
“The 16th Amendment was ratified and several times we have tried to repeal it. We have hundreds of Americans in Federal Prison for receiving the wrong information on this action by the IRS. No more to be said on this. If you are under the assumption it was not ratified, you are wrong and the Federal government is looking for you so they can hunt you down, take your taxes due by force and leave you pennyless and in prison.”
After an exhaustive year long search of legislative records in 48 sovereign states (Alaska & Hawaii were not admitted into the Union until after 1913), Bill Benson wrote his fact findings in The Law That Never Was, Vols. 1 & 2. He was able to unequivocally prove that the 16th Amendment was never Constitutionally, properly, or legally ratified. The only record of the 16th Amendment having been confirmed was a proclamation made by the Secretary of State Philander Knox on February 25, 1913, wherein he simply declared it to be “in effect”, but never stating it was lawfully ratified.
Complete article: https://political-resources.com/taxes/16thamendment/default.htm
Even better: https://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/notratified.htm
The following states rejected the amendment without ever subsequently ratifying it:
Connecticut
Florida (rejected the amendment after it had already been ratified by three-fourths of the states)
Rhode Island
Utah
The following states never took up the proposed amendment:
Pennsylvania
Virginia
complete article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
“If you are under the assumption it was not ratified, you are wrong and the Federal government is looking for you so they can hunt you down, take your taxes due by force and leave you pennyless and in prison.”
I am not a tax protester. The 16th has effectively been ratified by time and custom, regardless of the facts. The IRS will NOT be looking for me, as I have always paid my taxes. I don’t think they care about people who assume the 16th wasn’t ratified as long as they pay up.
“No more to be said on this.”
Agreed. After all, it IS your blog!! 🙂
— Kent Shaw
I didn’t mean bruhaha as heated or angry discussion Sandra. I meant it as getting off the point that I have been trying to make.
I understand the issues and am not necessarily in disagreement with them. I don’t understand why I get a lesson in the Libertarian platform when I said that the masses perceive the Libertarian party as “a group dedicated to abolishing the income tax and as long as that is the primary perception of the masses that vote then the Libertarian party will be the same place it is today which is not much different that 10 years ago, 20 years ago or 30 years ago when it started.”
Now if you can recast the Libertarian Party as a party of smaller govt, more efficient govt, etc etc instead of focusing on the income tax, then you have a firm foundation to bring in new voters. Why that hasn’t happened? In my opinion, it is because the activists in the Libertarian Party are dedicated to one primary goal and that is to abolish the Income Tax. It’s a catch 22!
Income tax is not the focus of the LP. The 16th Amendment was ratified and several times we have tried to repeal it. We have hundreds of Americans in Federal Prison for receiving the wrong information on this action by the IRS. No more to be said on this. If you are under the assumption it was not ratified, you are wrong and the Federal government is looking for you so they can hunt you down, take your taxes due by force and leave you pennyless and in prison.
The LP wants to cut back in the programs that help nobody but offer only a safety net for the under achievers and poorly educated. They have acacemic programs that must be put into the schools by the States, getting Feds out of the national programs who have cost millions and taught nobody to read.
Pollchecker there is no Bru ha ha, just a debate on the future of a third party; in this case the LP.
It is not heated and no threats or anger have been shown.
Sandra I truly and sincerely wish you well in your pursuits with the Libertarian Party.
As for me, I have been there, done that, deleted it. Any party that can nominate Bob Barr as a candidate…..well I will stand by all or my original statements.
But if people as yourself Sandra can get in there and make some significant improvements where MSM and others will take you guys seriously, then I think that is super and needed.
But I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to happen. And I’m not betting the farm or the future that it will either.
And if you go back to my original post, Sandra, you’ll see that’s what I said in the first place before the bru-ha-ha. But hey it makes a helluva discussion for a change around here.
Libertarians will be losers as long as the American voters are dumbed down to believe America is a Democracy. Our people do not write up laws that feed us or shelter us or even educate us. Our laws are written to protect us from the government and other nations to attack us for any reason.
Take any of those 10 people and ask them to tell you about the 4th, 10th or 16th amendments to the Constitution. Ask any history teacher to explain the Magna Carta and the influence it had on the American Founding fathers. Ask them why they didn’t teach this to their classes…..
Pollchecker we are legitimately in the game. We have been on the ballot in 48 or 50 states. We have many discussion forums on the internet who do just what CHB does here. What we don’t have is the MSM. What we don’t have are candidates who the MSM can write up as adulterers, child abusers, murderers, perverts and traitors to our freedoms. We have men and women who stand up for liberty and freedoms. How dull we must seem to the other two parties. We do not throw the race card out or have even a hint of which God our candidates pray to. We don’t care about their sexual orientation which makes the party dull reading.
America is not a tabloid television series but the last free and honest nation on the globe. Many will not fall into the MSM habit of looking for dirt on other Americans. We are a party of individuals which has been nearly impossible to define until the last 8 years of the Bush Administration. We found our model from hell!
If you ask 10 Americans about Libertarian Party, 8 out of 10 will most likely respond in a way that I have described. One of the two remaining might be sympathetic while the other one probably won’t know what the hell you are talking about.
Since I have voted Libertarian in the past, I will stand by ALL that I have said. You say you have no need to recast. FINE! Take glory about being right just like the rest.
But as long as you continue down the path you are going the Libertarian Party will continue to be a bunch of losers and no one will take them seriously.
I repeat, the Libertarian Party has been around over 30 years and they are less a political element than the Green Party. All I am saying is that if you want to be a player than you have to at least appear to understand the game to the masses.
Now you know and I know that serious Libertarians are very educated but you should also know what I know that the general masses are not.
If you have not made a political dent in the game in 30 years perhaps you should step back and try a few new approaches so you can legitimately get in the game.
Otherwise the Libertarian party will continue to be losers for another 30 years.
Thank you Sandra. I’ll try.
OKay, let’s take this statement;
“I said that the Libertarian Party has failed to get its message out to the public in a way that casts them as a legitimate party and not a bunch of crackpots that want to eliminate the Income tax.”
How does one adequately make the conclusion about a ‘legitimate’ party ? Simple electoral success ? If that’s true, than there are no ‘legitimate’ parties besides the main two. I tried to run for Congress as a Libertarian and was kicked off the ballot by a ‘legitimate’ party. Never really got a chance ‘cast’ myself as anything because the former GOP Congressman was afraid of the 2.5% I polled that June on Zogby. Yet they were ‘legitimate’ in prosecuting an unjust occupation, inflating the debt and liabilities far into the future and otherwise screwing up the country. Yet I was the one who showed up to a health care forum designed to hijack a free market approach while bad boy Johnny ignored it all together.
Haven’t candidates from ‘legitimate’ parties advocated the Fair Tax as a replacement for the Income Tax ? Mike Huckabee comes to mind . . .
Recasting is not the answer. I can’t think of any modern third party who has kept together and been as consistent as the LP. Don’t hand me the ‘crackpot’ line. If anything the ideals have kept the party together despite the disaffection of ‘legitimate’ party members who yearn to be like and hold the positions that their current parties refuse to recognize or pay anything but lip service to. Know thyself.
Fair electoral practices will not happen or come from the two main parties. Those that choose to fight outside those arenas should not be vilified for attempting to fight.
yeah you probably could have because I’m too old to keep shifting from one thing to the next on a busy day. The best I can come up with is cut and paste (winK).
Welcome ESun67.. It is a pleasure to find a new member who is so clear and erudite in their language. I was a Party member until I realized the GOP had dumped their long-time agenda and became the future of the empire building neoconservatives. It was so clear to me.
At one time the GOP was a third party and it eventually became a fierce competition for freedoms. I think that the American voters might just be pissed off enough to think 3rd party maybe not in 2008 but if we keep at it on the internet, we can make a viable party who can stand up for liberty. I have read all the anti LP propaganda and know from many people in the Party, like Lew Rockwell that it is a new party and we have as many Democrats as Republicans involved at this time to bring it all together for a perfect blend of correction.
Stick with us and share your comments.
I was commenting on the other poster, but it happened to be after you had already replied to him/her. Besides, I’m argumentative everyday, but not for the sake of just arguing. Actually, I took it easy on you with this one, I could have had a field day.
gosh you are argumentative today aren’t you? Did you read my entire conversation? I have voted Libertarian in the past. I have supported Libertarians in the past. So give me a break.
They have been around awhile Grif and they are no more popular today than they were in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s or now.
I’m just the messenger and as far as I know it’s still ok to have an opinion around here. If my opinion is wrong, then why the hell aren’t they any bigger, any more popular than they were in the past?
Because the general public does not take them seriously!
You can argue all you want but if you don’t learn from History you are destined to repeat it. They obviously have not learned the lesson yet because the only thing Bob Barr has of winning is a whole bunch of cynical disenfranchised Republicans. And that’s just a Republican voting for another Republican anyways. But at least those votes will NOT go to John McCain.
That’s right. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. “They can’t win, so I won’t waste my time supporting or joining their cause, even though I believe in it.”
I do not dismiss it nor do I disagree with the idea of a 3rd party.
I said that the Libertarian Party has failed to get its message out to the public in a way that casts them as a legitimate party and not a bunch of crackpots that want to eliminate the Income tax.
You are preaching to the choir. Perhaps that is the reason the Libertarians have failed to succeed in our political arena. You don’t listen, you just preach! And the general public who votes think you’re a bunch of crack pots because of it. It does not help that you INSIST on dramatizing these notions in your nominating process either.
Now this is just my opinion and you don’t have to agree with it. But if you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.
Personally, I do not believe the Libertarian Party is our country’s answer to a 3rd party for most of the reasons stated although I firmly would support a 3rd party that embraced many of the same ideals.
My advice, my Libertarian friends is simple: Recast the image and you might have a shot. Insist on being right and you lose. Your choice, not mine!
The Libertarian Party has never;
1. Sent a kid off to war.
2. Imposed an unjust tax.
3. Imprisoned an innocent individual.
While some clamor for the success of elections, policy movement and a general sense of injustice, it should be noted that everyone in ANY third party movement is resisting unrestrained power in our lives that the D’s & R’s have imposed since the Civil War.
Saying that the LP has failed over the last 30 years is simply wrong. As is the idea that taxation is their only issue. Ideas about gay marriage, the drug war and numerous other policy boondoggles have been reconsidered and re-thought simply because political pressure has been present. Alternative ideas tend to historically come from third parties. The main parties get savvy real quick when they get kicked in the political crotch.
Most people just accept the chore of voting in November and have little idea of the time and effort to organize politically, let alone outside the red and blue boxes. Numerous candidacies by spirited independents have never seen the light of day because of draconian ballot access laws and incredible media bias. That last factor alone has become the impetus for third parties to highlight or seek out Dems and Repubs as candidates. It doesn’t always work.
The LPNY was left at the altar twice by Howard Stern and William Weld. Arguably the Greens were damaged by Nader’s run in 2000.
The general point is that we shouldn’t dismiss third party efforts simply because they cannot win. We should question why the entire political ethos of mankind is locked into an either/or angst. The answer of course is that Madison was deathly afraid of the role of factions and wanted to eliminate political parties with single plurality districts. The practical result was the evolution of two parties whose likihood of winning that plurality was heightened by a unified group. Even Jefferson realized this and had to play along.
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