As soon as a new party springs up and begins to show signs of success, a lot of political tramps are immediately attracted to its ranks.
These men possess a certain amount of influence. They are trained politicians, well versed in the art of packing conventions and proficient at counting the ballots. When they come to the new party with crocodile tears of repentance coursing down their cheeks, it is too weak to refuse their aid. It opens its arms and kissing away their repentant tears, places them in the front rank where glory awaits them. The result of this is a large gain in votes and sometimes success at the polls. But this victory is only gained at the expense of principle, and the last state of that party is worse than the first.
(Francis D. Tandy, Voluntary Socialism, ch. 13, 1896)
12 Responses to Invasion of the Tramps
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A touch melodramatic. Barr seems to have honestly changed his view. If he costs McCain the election, he will lose all of his big, powerful Washington friends. If he were the kind of beast implied by the quote, its hard to see why he’d do what he’s doing.
If you follow Barr’s quotes, it becomes clear that he has two versions of his recantation, one for libertarian audiences and the other for mainstream audiences. He’s been going back and forth on the drug issue, for example, for months. (Neither verson is fully libertarian, of course.) So he can’t be entirely honest.
But the point of my post was not to criticise Barr’s integrity — I have no idea what the ratio of sincerity to duplicity in his statements is and don’t much care — but to criticise the LP for allowing a nonlibertarian and his operatives to take over the party in the hope of gaining more votes.
I agree that was a bit melodramatic. 😉
Hitler did not come to power talking about individual rights. He talked about patriotism and singled out scapegoats and said those scapegoats wanted to harm women and children (headlines said “Jewish man accosts woman in parking lot”). Then he encouraged groupthink and massive welfare programs.
Barr is like myself. I even backed Bush 100% in 2004, crawling over broken glass to vote for him and I even yelled at my sister on the phone the night before the election…claiming that her agonizing over the abortion issue was going to get us all killed by Islamfascists.
But that was before I learned about how Bush had made a deal with the Democrats to give the feminists laws like VAWA and IMBRA in exchange for their acquiescence on war budget votes and stopping the Alito filibuster. That was before I learned that he was using my taxmoney to “educate” young adult women not to date men (abstinence programs).
Bush sold men out. I converted big time and very quickly.
Bush got the wrong message from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He thought that men were all upset that an older man would “use his position of power” to sleep with his attractive young secretary. I cannot blame him for getting this very wrong impression of how men felt.
Since I know hundreds of men personally (they are in a database) who turned against the Bush Administration overnight when they heard about all the new anti-male laws, I can easily imagine that Bob Barr is one of the men who simply realized, a bit late and for whatever personal reasons, that Bush is whacko.
Remember that Bush actually WON the election in 2004 with more votes than any President ever got in history.
Where did those votes go? The lost votes represent at least 20 million American men who “grew up” since 2004.
These 20 million men no longer believe that Islamofascism is the main force to fight.
Regarding the “takeover”…remember that the goal of the LP should be to takeover the RP completely and let the socons convert or die. I agree that it could turn out that Barr is really a socon using the LP as a vehicle to attack a weak and supposedly centrist Rep candidate, which could conceivably help Barr take the Republican Nomination in September if McCain is forced by scandal or low poll numbers to resign his candidacy.
But Mary Ruwart probably would not have gone anywhere in the polls with her “gentle soul” approach. Mary didn’t seem to have the fire in her belly to eventually TAKE OVER the Republican Party.
So I see Bob Barr as showing a new generation of REAL libertarians how to conduct a hard-driving campaign that could result in the Republican Party adopting much of the LP platform and the Neocon/Socon party of the Bush years becoming more like a bad dream.
Mathematically, the US will remain a 2 party system until a Constitutional amendment allows politicians to rise to power based on the proportion of votes they received and not based on the all or nothing system where every citizen in a given area has voted for or against any given politician who ran.
If we were a parliamentary democracy, Ron Paul would be packing Congress with about 15% like-minded people this November.
But because Ron Paul backers average only 15% of the voters everywhere, we will be lucky to get many like-minded politicians in office anywhere.
Hitler did not come to power talking about individual rights.
Um, okay. What has Hitler got to do with anything?
Since I know hundreds of men personally (they are in a database) who turned against the Bush Administration overnight when they heard about all the new anti-male laws, I can easily imagine that Bob Barr is one of the men who simply realized, a bit late and for whatever personal reasons, that Bush is whacko.
You think Barr turned against Bush mainly because he thought Bush was insufficiently antifeminist?!? My opinion of Barr isn’t as bad as that.
remember that the goal of the LP should be to takeover the RP completely
That has never been the goal of the LP, and I don’t see why it should be.
So I see Bob Barr as showing a new generation of REAL libertarians how to conduct a hard-driving campaign that could result in the Republican Party adopting much of the LP platform
What LP platform? The conservative forces that have taken over the party have mostly scuttled the platform, and Barr is distancing himself from the rest of it as fast as he can.
Mathematically, the US will remain a 2 party system until a Constitutional amendment allows politicians to rise to power based on the proportion of votes they received and not based on the all or nothing system where every citizen in a given area has voted for or against any given politician who ran.
Or until enough of us ignore the government that it collapses.
I almost stopped reading after the first mention of “Islamfascists”, then stopped for real after hearing that Monica Lewinsky was attractive.
The amount of libertarians who are actually supporting Barr surprises me. They have faith that he has honestly had a change of heart. But I’m not convinced that people change that much overnight, and the change that he’s allegedly made isn’t really that great anyways. I’ve been very critical of Ron Paul from a libertarian point of view, but Barr is worse by far.
So when did the LP begun to “show signs of success”?
They have faith that he has honestly had a change of heart.
Ehh, that’s charitable. I think they have just barely convinced themselves that maybe he’s had a change of heart. What they have faith in is that Barr = more votes.
So when did the LP begun to “show signs of success”?
Well, depends what one means by “signs of success.” But they have a decent track record at actually getting onto the ballot, which must be attractive to indepedent canadidates.