CDR: RE: Parties

Carskadden, Rush carskar at netsolve.net
Fri Oct 27 10:54:39 PDT 2000


Eric,
     Yeah, there is the Libertarian party, and they get a lot of electoral
votes. In fact, I think that our next president will be Harry Browne. Our
work is done. Let's go get a drink. 
     Seriously, what we are discussing here is the feasibility of
establishing a credible power base for a third party. I don't think (and
maybe you disagree with me here) that the Libertarian party has achieved
this at all. I don't think that the current Libertarian party CAN establish
this kind of voter confidence. The current presidential candidate for the
Libertarian party, Harry Browne, has done little to gain voter enthusiasm
with such bold and impractical claims as the statement that his first action
in office would be granting executive pardon to drug offenders. 
     I am familiar with the Libertarian party, to the extent that I was a
member for the past several years, and have attended several state and
national Libertarian party conventions, and spoken with Congress-people as a
representative of Libertarian interests. The fact of the matter is, in a
discussion of strong representation of issues within a viable Washington
D.C. power movement, you can only be bringing up the Libertarian party as
either an example of failure in the third party strategy or a recommendation
for a third party to endorse. 
     As for the possible assertion that the Libertarian party is an example
of a failure to succeed at activism outside of the two-party arena, I think
that any failure (perceived or real) may in fact be due to the outrageous
demands of the LP (as an activist, I have been embarrassed by them many
times), and the complete stubborn demand for overnight change without
compromise. These facets of the party may be sexy to guys like you and I,
but don't engender the public, or establish a foothold in Washington. 
     As to the possible recommendation of the Libertarian party as a viable
alternative to the two party system, I just don't see how that answers my
question. Sure, the Libertarian party seems to be fairly interested in
privacy and personal freedom. That still doesn't tell me whether you think
it would be easier to get the Libertarian party enough power to actually
protect our interests, or convince existing partisan powers to take up the
cause.
     In short, thanks for the info, but you've answered nothing.

ok,
Rush Carskadden

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Murray [mailto:ericm at lne.com]
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 12:11 PM
To: Carskadden, Rush
Cc: 'cypherpunks at algebra.com'
Subject: Re: Parties


On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 11:09:40AM -0500, Carskadden, Rush wrote:
> Scott and I have been discussing (from a theoretical standpoint) the
> possibility of a third party that focuses on privacy and personal freedom,

There already is one.
It's called the Libertarian party.  www.lp.org.


-- 
  Eric Murray           Consulting Security Architect         SecureDesign
LLC
  http://www.securedesignllc.com                            PGP
keyid:E03F65E5
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/html
Size: 4337 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks-legacy/attachments/20001027/6a024525/attachment.txt>


More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list