From: mohr@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Gordon Mohr)
Subject: Moderation is no sell-out (was Re: Marrou's puzzling vote totals)
Summary: absolutism is anti-libertarian
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:44:01 GMT

--

In article <1992Nov17.013653.25491@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Stephen M Conley) writes:
>In article <1djie9INNoem@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> aa396@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bill
> Henley) writes:
>
>[stuff deleted]
>
>>And if the Libertarians are going to continue as a party,
>>it may be time to re-evaluate the party platform and do some
>>compromising with reality. 
>
>Okay, which freedoms and which oppressed groups do you think
>we should sell out first?

How sad. This sort of righteousness makes me think that, even though
libertarians know what ails society, and how to fix it, I'll die in
a world less free than the one I was born into, because my fellow
libertarians are hopelessly naive about politics.

The original poster said nothing about making our views, our beliefs,
or our goals more realistic--only the platform. 

For although libertarianism is eminently realistic, our approach to 
enacting it has not been.

I'm sure a sizable majority of voters wish they had candidates to vote
for who were more libertarian than the candidates available today.
However, these same voters can surely find something about pure 
libertarianism they find absolutely terrifying or wholly irresponsible.
They want candidates who are more libertarian, but not AS libertarian
as the LP program.

The Dems and GOP, for the most part, CAN'T offer such candidates because
of the circumstances of their power. The Libertarian Party CAN, but WON'T,
because of an insistence on purity of libertarian thought and promotion
by members, party documents, and candidates. 

As a result, there's a giant void on the political map. Someone who steps
into it won't just reap electoral success, but will also make the country 
significantly more free. The only reason this hasn't happened already
is because the Ds, Rs, and Ls have, for their various reasons, avoided
running "moderate libertarian" candidates.

Thus it is only the greed and arrogance of many libertarians which is 
holding us back. By insisting on offering everything or nothing, and
giving the voter no intermediate choices, libertarians who insist on
purity are preventing a shift to greater freedom.

Thus compromise is a positively moral thing to do. If moderation means
a more libertarian country, and absolutism means, as we have every reason
to believe, continued irrelevance, then absolutism is selling out: selling
out the cause of greater liberty to satisfy our own preferences as to
political positioning.

After all, we libertarians believe that individuals best know what's good
for them, don't we? How can giving the voters what they want, when it is
also in line with our short-term goals, be bad? 

Voters will never respond to candidates who tell them everything they 
believe is wrong. Voters want to be flattered, they want to be listened
to. Candidates who have the gaul to tell voters "Listen to ME!"
rarely get their message out, and when they do, get punished for their
arrogance at the polls by either defeat or, in the case of third parties,
continued obscurity.

Talk about "selling out" "freedoms or oppressed groups" is sanctimonious
bullshit. You can only sell-out when you have something of value in the
first place. Despite lip-service to every possible enumerable freedom,
an absolutist libertarian approach has accomplished precious little in
protecting or expanding freedom in the real world. If every LP member
spontaneously became a socialist, who'd miss them? Which "oppressed
group" would be worse off?

Even if I bought this flimsy emotional appeal, "selling out" some parts
of our plans would still be a superior course to strict absolutism.

Why? Because idealistic obstinance will reduce--and in some cases, has
reduced, our efforts to a lonely candlelight vigil. A vigil far from the
rest of society. A vigil unnoticed by those whose ways we must change. A
vigil for "oppressed groups" who have no idea they're oppressed or that
we're trying to do-oppress them. A vigil which makes those very people
we need to win over think we're peculiar, and scares them away. 

Our philosophy has been ably constructed. It's done. Our worldly work
has, however, just begun.

What worked in the world of ideas won't necessarily work in the muddled
world of politics. So keep a vigil if you'd like, but don't pretend 
you're doing the cause of freedom any favors.

>Steve Conley
>sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

- Gordon Mohr ------------
- mohr@cory.berkeley.edu -