Greetings, Travis! Travis Pahl, wrote, in part: > That is a decent answer. I will remind you in 2 years.
Actually, that should be 4 years...assuming they manage to dislodge a net of 5 Democrat Senators in '06. That would get them to 60 Senators. > As for what it would take from me? Well I would be willing to support > them if 1/3 of them voted the same way I would at least 2/3rds of the > time. Once this occurs I would consider it worth my while to support > that party. That goes for any party. Right now only the LP meets > this criteria. As Robert Goodman pointed out, you're easy! With 55 Republican Senators, that would be 19 Senators voting the way you would at least 2/3rd of the time (in the current Congress). And with, what is it? 228? Republican Representatives in the House, that would be 76 House members voting the way you would at least 2/3rd of the time. Of course, the way the wacko fringe is taking over the Democrat party, there's practically no way I'd vote for a Dem unless he/she was obviously making their own way. (Gov. Bill Richardson in NM might be an example.) But even then, it would depend on whether the Republican would be better or worse. As for the Libertarian party, most of its leadership has gone off into wacko territory too. One of the central issues of the day (at least at the national level) is whether we are going to take seriously the fact that we are again at war with an oppressive, expansionist ideology. We can't simply close down our borders without seriously affecting our economy (and that would be an extremely un-libertarian thing to do anyway), we can't appease this ideology-short of adopting it as our own. And so we MUST fight it-militarily, ideologically, diplomatically, and culturally. If we do not, we are doomed to an ever-increasing series of attacks until we either fight or "submit." The Republicans are the only ones serious about fighting this-regardless of how many "mistakes" they may be making. Most of the leadership of the other parties (there are exceptions, yes) is either completely blind to the nature of what we face or else is just saying whatever they think will catch some shifting political wind. Another issue is judges. (See my previous post regarding CAFTA/Codex/Vitamins.) On this one, there is (or should be) very little daylight between the Republican party and libertarians...unless you are a "pro-choice" libertarian (or perhaps, unless you think judges should make gay marriage the law of the land). I suspect that the LP will probably do its best to draw distinctions based on rulings on "personal issues," but even there, Scalia and Thomas are not the "right wing" ogres they are sometimes made out to be. If, for instance, there were 9 Clarence Thomas's on the Supreme Court, this would be a MUCH more libertarian society than we have now. And some people who have looked at his record have concluded that Bush's nominee, Roberts, may well be the strongest property-rights justice that has been on the court in some time (like, decades!) And at least some of the other names bandied about as potential choices are fairly libertarian: Janice Rogers Brown, Michael Luttig, Alex Kozinski, Emilio Garza. Again, the majority of the democrats appear to oppose anyone who might in any way limit government power. Lowell C. Savage It's the freedom, stupid! Gun control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly. > Travis > > On 8/11/05, Lowell C. Savage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Greetings, Travis! > > > > Given the current situation, I'm willing to give them 2 years--with 60 > > Senators. And even then, I'm not going to buy into some stupid > > "zero-tolerance" kind of rule where I'm not supposed to watch the > debates > > and see that some "moderates" are peeling off and screwing the majority > of > > their party members. > > > > Now that I've answered your question (probably not to your satisfaction, > but > > it's the best you're going to get) I've got one for you, what would it > take > > for you to see that there is significant support within the Republican > party > > (including the elected officials) for libertarian ideas? _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
