I do understand the libertarian party platform; LJ comments probably aren't the best forum to try to cover all the bases in a political discussion. I'll also spare Eric an extended political argument in his private LJ. :) Just a small handful of additional comments, and then I'll shut up about this -- it's something I feel strongly about due to personal history.
I agree with you that Jeffersonian liberals and libertarians are very close. I'm not a Jeffersonian liberal either. In US terms, I'm a socialist, although the US being as right-wing as it is, that doesn't really mean all that much. (The Democratic Party would be the centrist-right party in pretty much any European country.) The political language and labels in the US are a mess, to say the least, so I'm going to have a hard time succinctly communicating to you the general set of things I believe in, but I do know that it's not US libertarian.
I understand how the libertarian party aims to provide the things that I want; I was a subscriber to The Freeman (published by the Foundation for Economic Education) for years and read it cover-to-cover. After a whole lot of thought and discussion and study of economics and thought about how people behave, I personally came to the conclusion that I don't think that approach will work. I think it's based on a lot of assumptions that sound good in theory but are not born out in practice.
I'm not trying to convince you here; it would take far more words than this, and I think Eric would get rather tired of us if we really tried to have the full debate here. (Not to mention that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for that debate over the years.) This isn't really an argument -- consider it an example of the reaction to the libertarian party from someone who calls himself progressive and who, similar to Eric, doesn't find a home in the Democratic Party these days.
If I were going to jump to a third party, I'd be more likely to go to the Green Party, particularly since they've gotten rid of Nader (great consumer advocate, really bad politician).
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Re: game on!
Date: 2004-12-24 08:12 pm (UTC)I agree with you that Jeffersonian liberals and libertarians are very close. I'm not a Jeffersonian liberal either. In US terms, I'm a socialist, although the US being as right-wing as it is, that doesn't really mean all that much. (The Democratic Party would be the centrist-right party in pretty much any European country.) The political language and labels in the US are a mess, to say the least, so I'm going to have a hard time succinctly communicating to you the general set of things I believe in, but I do know that it's not US libertarian.
I understand how the libertarian party aims to provide the things that I want; I was a subscriber to The Freeman (published by the Foundation for Economic Education) for years and read it cover-to-cover. After a whole lot of thought and discussion and study of economics and thought about how people behave, I personally came to the conclusion that I don't think that approach will work. I think it's based on a lot of assumptions that sound good in theory but are not born out in practice.
I'm not trying to convince you here; it would take far more words than this, and I think Eric would get rather tired of us if we really tried to have the full debate here. (Not to mention that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for that debate over the years.) This isn't really an argument -- consider it an example of the reaction to the libertarian party from someone who calls himself progressive and who, similar to Eric, doesn't find a home in the Democratic Party these days.
If I were going to jump to a third party, I'd be more likely to go to the Green Party, particularly since they've gotten rid of Nader (great consumer advocate, really bad politician).