On Feb 16, 1996 12:34:42, 'Thomas Grant Edwards <tedwards@Glue.umd.edu>' wrote on libertarians and the Libertarian Party. I am able to draw a distinction between people whose primary political identification is with the Libertarian Party (LP) and "small el" libertarians just as I am able to draw similar distinctions between people in the Communist Party U.S.A. and "small c" communists or members of the Socialist Party U.S.A. and "small s" socialists. While I have an enormous number of disagreements with the LP I have never presented any critique on the list of the LP. I've spent many evenings with LP members in bars or coffee shops arguing over politics. On more than one occasion I've been at the same demos with LPers, generally over issues like "reform" (i.e. total elimination) of the drug laws. On the basis of my personal observations in the 1980s and 90s I consider LPers to be far more honest and well-informed than libertarians, just as I consider old-style Randian Objectivists far more principled that today's libertarian "Subjectivists." You are far more able than I to state with certaintude what the general policies of the LP are. But the LP is not the total class of libertarians nor all of the individual libertarians. While the LP or its majority may not call for the things I've critiqued, certainly libertarians have. Nor, as far as I can recall, have LPers repeatedly posted to the cypherpunk list material that is on-the-surface at least significantly off-topic; libertarians have. And I responded. --tallpaul