I consider myself a libertarian. I’m pro-free market, as long as it’s really fair and is working, I’m very anti big government, and I’m socially liberal. But after I went through the candidates on the sample ballot yesterday, I’m now quite angry at the libertarian party. Or, maybe not the party per se, but at least with all of the members of the party who are running for office in my area!
Here are my problems:
- Abortion. I was under the impression that the libertarian position was, “It’s morally ambiguous, so the government should let everyone make their own decision.” Apparently, the local candidates never thought about it that way. Every. Last. One. is pro-life!
- Gay Marriage. Okay – I’d much rather be working to abolish all government recognition of marriage, but if we’re going to have it at all, gay people must absolutely have it too. Guess what the candidates say? They’re in favor of a federal marriage amendment! Legislating by Constitution! That’s about as un-libertarian as you can get.
- ‘Family/Moral Values’ This isn’t really am issue, just something they like to blab about. Morality is yet another subject that I thought libertarians believed should be left to the individual. Not these guys. It’s like they actually meant to run for the Constitution Party, or something!
- Economics. Some of the local candidates are pretty much clones of the GOP here. (WTF are they even doing in this party anyway?). The others are old-school hard core libertarians. They’re completely Laissez Fair, etc. Now, I respect that position, but I don’t think it’s practical. So, why aren’t there any candidates who hold a more moderate view?
- Illegal immigration. They’re all against it. Libertarians should be pro-immigration. I would understand if the more isolationist ones were, well, isolationist, but why all of them?
In the end, I think that the only issue I agreed with most of them on, was the war in Iraq! (The policy is get out as fast as possible, if you didn’t know).
That was it! I think that this is really horrible. What on earth happened to the old Libertarian Party, anyway?
So as far as I can tell, the only party left with any sense is the Green Party (Yes, I’m a Classical Liberal who likes the Green Party. This is a contradiction. I’ll explain some other time!)
Therefore, this country sucks.
QED