Tag Archives | Anarchy

I’ve created a monster!

A monster of a name, anyway: Ruwarchy! It’s inspired Less Antman to give his unofficial Ruwart site that name.

While obviously prompted by Mary Ruwart’s announcement of her presidential bid, Ruwarchy.com isn’t specifically a Ruwart campaign site; it’s more of an all-things-Ruwart site, and indeed seems deliberately designed to be welcoming to libertarians who reject electoral politics. The site proclaims itself a forum for “those who want to advance the pure libertarian ideas Dr. Ruwart champions in whatever way they choose,” and there’s even a section of the website devoted to “non-party activism.” Moreover, Antman has argued elsewhere that even anti-electoral libertarians have reason to welcome her campaign, on the grounds that “it should improve sales of her books,” and “since neither book actively promotes voting or politics, this will aid the entire movement, including those who reject political campaigning as a persuasion technique.”

But there’s plenty of stuff for partyarchs too, including a section devoted to overturning the 2006 gutting of the LP platform.

In the meantime, the official Ruwart campaign site is being run by the hardline anti-electoral Brad Spangler. Go figure.

I suspect anti-electorals will have especially mixed feelings about Ruwart’s candidacy. On the one hand, she’s promoting a much more radical form of libertarianism than Ron Paul is; on the other, for that very reason she’s more likely than Paul to lure potential anti-electorals into electoral politics.

Ruwart’s campaign will also be an interesting test of how much radicalism is left in the LP. If someone like Barr or Gravel beats Ruwart to the nomination that would probably be a sign that it’s lost its soul irretrievably.