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February 24, 2005

Libertarians: Huh? Part 3

Randy Barnett discusses the effectiveness of the Libertarian Party here and here and argues that the Libertarian Party is a hindrance to libertarian policies because only the two major parties have any real influence over policy.

I have long believed this to be a problem with Libertarians. The demand for purity of thought and an unwillingness to compromise means no libertarian policy changes. I posted about this months ago here and here, where I argued that libertarians are really good at talking about stuff, but that the Libertarian Party and libertarians as a group are irrelevant when it comes to real life policy decisions made by elected officials.

Here is Barnett doing a good job summing up the Libertarian problems: "In our political system, you have to be a member of a political coalition to influence its direction. This means working and compromising with people with whom you share some goals and disagree about others. This is the insight behind Groiver Norquist's vision of the "leave us alone" coalition in the GOP that advances the disparate interests of its members, while marginalizing those who want to advance their agenda by interfering in the lives of others.

Like other Americans, however, many libertarians think of political parties like sports teams. They want their own team to root for and cannot root for the other teams. Voting Libertarian gives them psychological satisfaction, while in the aggregate diminishing their political impact.

Libertarians should stop thinking of parties as teams and think of them instead as the playoffs. In NFL football terms, The Democrats are the AFC and the Republicans he NFC. To get into the Superbowl, you have to survive the season and the playoffs in your respective conference. In effect, Libertarians want to form their own league which no one but themselves is interested in watching. And they assure themselves of never making the playoffs much less the Superbowl."

Posted by Pete at February 24, 2005 03:06 PM

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Comments

If we extend the football analogy, does that mean that Rod "He Hate Me" Smart can be the libertarian candidate since it sounds like the libs are the XFL?

Posted by: Dangerous Dan at February 24, 2005 06:03 PM