Monthly Archives: December 2006

Is The Libertarian Party Worthless ?

Politics

That’s what Bruce Bartlett argues in this essay at Human Events:

The basic problem with the Libertarian Party is the same problem faced by all third parties: It cannot win. The reason is that under the Constitution a candidate must win an absolute majority in the all-important Electoral College. It won’t do just to have the most votes in a three- or four-way race. You have to have at least 270 electoral votes to win, period.

Theoretically, this is no barrier to third parties at the state and local level. But in practice, if a party cannot win at the presidential level, it is very unlikely to achieve success at lower levels of government. In short, the Electoral College imposes a two-party system on the country that makes it prohibitively difficult for third parties to compete.

On the whole, I think Bartlett is correct. Like it or not, the political system that the Constitution, and our history, has created overwhelmingly favors a two-party system to such an extent that truly successful third-parties have only arisen in situations where one of the two main parties was in a state of crisis.

The Whig Party came out of the ashes of the Federalists. The Republicans arose in part from the ashes of the Whigs. Apart from that, there has been no third-party that has been anything other than a flash-in-the-pan. Had Teddy Roosevelt defeated Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election, it’s likely that the Progressive Party a/k/a the Bull Moose Party would have supplanted the Republicans, but, other than that, there has been no serious challenge to the two-party system since the 1860 Presidential Election. That’s 146 years folks.

Bartlett goes on to point out something that has been my pet peeve for years. Even when it gets media attention the Libertarian Party seems to blow it. The reason for that is that, quite honestly, the LP is often the haven of gadflys. With the exception of Ron Paul, who returned to the Republican Party, I don’t think I can name one Libertarian Presidential Candidate that I can honestly say would have been qualified to fill the office he was running for.

So, if not the Libertarian Party, then what ?

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Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

The Tyranny Of The Majority

Blog Discussions, Individual Rights, Theory and Ideas

As both Adam and Brad have noted, I stirred up quite a little hornet’s nest with my post earlier today addressing a liberal leftist who didn’t really seem to understand (or respect) libertarian thought.

I had hoped, perhaps naively, that it would result in a serious debate and exchange of ideas. Instead, in my absence during the day, it quickly devolved into a name-calling contest in which Brad and others were denounced as trolls rather than given the respect that someone with ideas deserves. As Adam said, had Ms. O’Brien or her readers come here and commented, I have no doubt they would have been treated with far more respect than they gave to their opponent on their home turf.

What these people seem to continually forget, is the fact that democratic majorities can be as tyrannical as the most despotic dictator. John Stuart Mill put it best in his great 1859 work On Liberty when he said:

The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein.

In other words, the mere fact that the men and women who make government policy are elected by a democratic means, rather than inheriting their position by royal blood or privilege, or by blood, does not mean that the policies they enact cannot be oppressive. In fact, when government is put in the hands of a majority by democracy, it is often more oppressive than its non-democratic predecessors might be. Jim Crow laws, to pick just one example, were not imposed by Kings or Premiers; they were voted into law by men elected by a majority of the eligible voters of the Southern United States.

This is why the Constitution created a government of limited power. The Founding Fathers knew that unlimited power, even in the hands of a democratically elected government, could be the path to tyranny and despotism

Unfortunately, some people don’t seem to recognize that idea:

If We, the People, want to promote the general Welfare by initiating taxpayer funded universal health care, for example, ain’t nothin’ in the Constitution that says we can’t have it. People opposed to it can argue about why they think universal health care is not a good use of taxpayer dollars, and then the voters can decide which way they want to go. But when such a program is nixied purely on some ideological dogmas about “big government,” that’s essentially an argument against republican government, and against democracy itself. It’s an argument that says people may not govern themselves, and it’s a violation of the principles on which this nation was founded.

And there lies the fundamental problem that the author just does not understand. The Constitution and Bill of Rights clearly stand for the principle that if it isn’t in the Constitution, then the Federal Government can’t do it.

More importantly, though, it makes clear the point that, without limited government, individual liberty cannot survive for very long.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Should The Government Force You To Vaccinate Your Children ?

Individual Rights

That question is raised by reports that, starting in January, several counties in Maryland will bar students from public school who haven’t been vaccinated for Chicken Pox and Hepatitis B:

Thousands of Maryland students could be barred from classes after the holiday break because they have not been vaccinated against chickenpox and hepatitis B, as required by the state’s latest immunization schedule.

Local health departments and school systems have sent repeated notices on these sixth- through ninth-graders, made follow-up calls in numerous jurisdictions, run ads on radio and in community newspapers and offered free clinics. But response continues to lag as the Jan. 2 “exclusion date” nears.

Students who return to school next month without a record of being immunized — or, in the case of chickenpox, without the month-and-year documentation of when they had the disease — by law should be kept from attending school. The only exception would be those who arrive with proof of a pending medical appointment to get the shots. Their grace period ends Jan. 22.

And the requirement will expand. By 2009, all students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 will be required to have been vaccinated for these two disease before being allowed entry into the public schools.

The question, though, is whether the government even has the right to force parents do vaccinate their children. The only justification, of course, is if the disease in question is a threat to public health. Except in rare circumstances, though, Chicken Pox is not a fatal disease in children or even adults, although it can have a more devastating impact if you are infected when you’re older. Hepatitis B is a more serious matter, of course, but is not easy to transmit.

Given this, it’s hard to see why, beyond accepting the idea of the government as the nanny deciding who should be vaccinated against what and when, parents should be forced to have their children vaccinated against either of these diseases.

Who do you trust more to make the right medical decisions for their children, parents or a bureaucrat at HHS ?

On the whole, I’m more apt to trust the parent.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Libertarianism and Democracy

Constitution, Individual Rights, Theory and Ideas

By now, of course, you’ve all seen this:

I still say that libertarianism and “limited government” ideology is essentially anti-democratic. It deprives We, the People of the ability to use government in our own interests. Certainly the powers of government must be limited — the power to censor, the power to search and seize property, the power to intrude on citizens’ private lives generally — but placing artificial limits on the size and functions of government doesn’t restrict government as must as it restricts the will of the people. I’m not calling for “big government” for its own sake. I’m just saying that a government should be as big (or as small) as its citizens require.

I’d like to let it go. It’s clear, from this post and another, that this blogger understands neither libertarianism nor democracy. But sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Libertarianism isn’t anti-Democracy. In fact, the statement itself is nonsensical. Libertarianism is a moral system, valuing individual liberty as it’s highest ideal. Democracy is a form of government, consisting of majority rule. Or, to make it more plain, liberty is an end, democracy is a means to an end.
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Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

I Thought About It

Blog Discussions

I thought about responding to the Maha Blog after this post and comment thread. In the course of the thread, Maha decided to censor two Liberty Papers contributors, including myself and Brad. She also removed a comment from “Mycroft Holmes” without comment at all when he had the temerity to point out that she had a strange way of defending liberty (which she claims to do).

I thought about a lot of things, but decided that you folks are bright enough to be able to figure things out on your own. For example, I decided you could see through the so-called liberalism of her blog to the actual populism. Like the idea that we shouldn’t bother with an amendment process because that would just “get in the way” of doing what the people want. Never mind all the examples in history of tyranny and oppression brought about by not obstructing the “will of the people”. Just one example.

Both Maha, and her fan club, oppose W and Co for their increase in oppression, failing to notice that their populist socialism is oppressive as well. Ah well.

Maha decided to call Brad and I trolls when we insisted on publicly debating her. She decided that the conversation went “right over our head” when we disagreed with her. Check it out for yourself, if you are so inclined. If I really wanted to, I could keep commenting on her blog through the simple expedient of using a different name and email address and a web proxy to change my IP address. But, it just isn’t worth my time at this point.

One last thought. If Maha should choose to come to The Liberty Papers and discuss her position, we will provide an uncensored environment for the discussion. No one’s comments are ever removed, except actual spam. No matter how much we dislike what she says, no matter how many comments she posts, she will not have her comments removed. Even when the contributors here have vehemently disagreed with commenters (John Newman, for example), they have never censored. I wonder if she understands the irony of censoring “Mycroft Holmes”?

Adam Selene
https://thelibertypapers.org/2006/11/22/comrades-i-hereby-declare-the-revolution/
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