Libertarians need to figure out a few issues that are most important to them, that are realistic and achievable, and push candidates who push those ideas. If they aren’t with you on everything else, don’t sweat it too much. It’s a big picture game, and it’ll take generations to undo the damage progressivism wrought in the 20th century.

I like your optimism. I hope this is reversible.

I agree with this, but the constitution is just a piece of paper if we don’t have people voting for a government that’s committed to preserving it. The 20th century was a triumph for progressivism and social democracy. The problem, I think, wasn’t that the idea of constitutionally limited government isn’t electorally viable, it’s that Ron Paul wasn’t electorally viable. Libertarians need to figure out a few issues that are most important to them, that are realistic and achievable, and push candidates who push those ideas. If they aren’t with you on everything else, don’t sweat it too much. It’s a big picture game, and it’ll take generations to undo the damage progressivism wrought in the 20th century.

Ron Paul’s success in fund raising I think is a great example of this; it wasn’t for a lack of money, energy and enthusiasm that liberty didn’t win. It was because people put all that energy, money, and hope behind a candidate who wasn’t electorally viable.

The fact that Ron Paul’s platform of liberty is not electorally viable is evidence of how far down the road we are.

It may be the people want socialism. So what do you do at that point?

If they want Socialism then let a candidate articulate that and run on a platform for ammending the Constitution.

What we have is creeping Fascism and people ignorantly comply out of (primarily) fear and laziness. Just because a large portion of the population is fearful and lazy does not make the subversion of our Constitutionally-limited government acceptable.

That may be the case. It may be the people want socialism. So what do you do at that point?

There’s a lot of work to be done to accomplish this, and we have to work with the electorate that exists out there, not the electorate as we wish it to be.

I’m afraid there’s no reversing the trend from within the system, and we’re pretty far down the road….

Which is why he’s not going to win. Libertarian ideas don’t win in this country because if there’s a winning libertarian majority to be had, it’s only going to be moderately libertarian. Libertarians need to get over the fact that the vast majority of voters have no desire to slay leviathan. You might get a majority on board for cutting here, cutting there, more freedom here, more freedom there, but across the board profound changes aren’t going to win an electoral majority. You have to start small, then work to keep moving the ball forward. Libertarians haven’t been doing that, because they don’t like the political process, of the kinds of people who participate in it.

McCain is a very imperfect candidate, as is Romney, because they are representative of a lot of compromises that happen among the various factions of the party. I would have thought by now that Ron Paul’s paltry electoral showing would be a wake up call for people who want smaller government now, and in a big way; we’re a small minority. So what are the choices? We can either work through the existing system to try to get candidates to adopt some of our principles, and get better candidates in front of voters, or we can drop out of the political process and keep bitching about big government on the internet where it’s not going to do any good.

I do think there is a majority that can be built around the principles of smaller government, but we’re not going to get everything we want right now, nor are we always going to win on everything. There’s a lot of work to be done to accomplish this, and we have to work with the electorate that exists out there, not the electorate as we wish it to be.

Because Ron Paul is a crazy racist. Or, at the very least, he is the candidate of choice for crazy racists.

Even if he was racist (he’s not. just guilty of keeping poor company), I’d take a racist who doesn’t advocate preemptive war and a domestic war on civil liberties. Racism is ugly business, but death and destruction of human rights is far far worse.

Ron Paul will serve you and begin dismantling the Federal beast. Under Romney or McCain (or Hillary or Obama) you will live by their arbitrary rules, and be punished accordingly. You want to debate whose arbitrary rules to live under? I’ll be voting for Ron Paul.

Think about it. Anyone who changes their stance on issues practicly by the week is weak minded and indecisive. He has no resolve and no mind of his own. Do you think someone like that would be a RELIABLE leader of this nation?

There, I said it. It’s what everyone’s been a-thinkin’.

But for some reason, Romney’s flip-flopping is worse and more unforgivable than that of any other Republican candidate. Interesting.

They are both unforgivable. As is the fact that both leading Democrats will infringe our constitutionally protected human rights. Dabating who will infringe our Human rights least is assinine. Hoping Romney will trample us least is even more assinine. Your inference that people are harder on him because he’s morman doesn’t apply to me. I happen to think McCain is the worse R candidate, but I’m sick and tired of cutting any of these authoritarians slack.

Until we stop voting for the least bad candidate they will never stop eroding. Keep voting for the least worst and you’ll have a terrible choice to make eventually. Strike back in this war on American citizens, or take it.

Demand your human rights, don’t waste your time debating who will give us the biggest scraps from the table. It’s our fucking table.

McCain, for example, has a long and illustrious history of stabbing conservatives in the back, yet gun owners happily assume as president he’ll stand up to his beloved Washington Media after the next school shooting.

And then there’s President Bush, who has never renounced his support for the AW Ban renewal, but seemed to get alot of gun owner votes in 2004.

But for some reason, Romney’s flip-flopping is worse and more unforgivable than that of any other Republican candidate. Interesting.

But, you know, we should reward good behavior.

It is not good behavior, he’s lying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seriously though, it’s worth considering that all politicians have political constituencies they have to please or they don’t win elections. That’s why I think any of the Republicans are a better choice than Hillary or Obama, despite the fact that I do, in fact, not like any of the Republicans left in the race. Bush came into office not being a particularly fantastic candidate on the gun issue, but I wouldn’t say we’ve fared too badly under Bush, DOJ brief on Heller aside.

I think the real question we need to be asking ourselves is why we can’t get solid gun rights candidates into the White House. The answer isn’t that we keep voting for lesser of two evils. We had two strong gun rights candidates in the race, and they both fizzled. Huckabee isn’t bad on guns either, but there’s a lot of other reasons not to like him.