I did not concede your point that Pennsylvania or any other state LP required a pledge, as it was me that brought the word "pledge" into the discussion while disagreeing with your claim that their was a required "oath."
Your ability to make a statement of agreement you really don't consider binding, indeed, says everything about you and nothing about me whatever.
Now that's interesting, I never implied such, and your saying as much, does say a lot about you.
Nice try, but even your ad hominem doesn't cut it.
I agree. I'll cut out the ad hominem counters, if you will cut out the same, as well as your dishonesty.
...you originally claimed the LP wasn't a pacifist party, you then took great pains to prove that pacifism is the direction in which the LP has always and consistently been moving.
Hmmm, "great pains" seems a bit of an over statement for a couple sentences relating to the subject. At any rate, I stated nothing that suggested that the LP is even remotely a pacifist party. Nor did I state anything that demonstrated pacifism to be the direction the LP was taking, as you claim. I did however set out by definition, that the LP is not a pacifist party. You might have missed it as you do not concern your self over the meaning of the word "initiate."
I see... you've... dropped... an indefensible position. ...I see you've dropped that position, too...
I've dropped nothing. You just hadn't offered anything new that was worthy of a return to old ground. I see no reason to repeat myself over and over with the belief, as you seem to have, that in doing so it somehow will make it true.
So why then is this pledge/oath/vow/silly sentence so important that it appears in the membership application of most LP's?
It doesn't.
I'm wondering why I upset you so much. I've looked back over our exchange and have found the one sentence from my first reply that seems to have set you off. It started with you replying to a comment by another poster that:
A man who truly loves liberty would be willing to fight for it.
Where upon you wrote:
A man who truly loves liberty has a duty to die for it.
Upon which I wrote:
I see you are still alive.
I agree that a man who loves liberty is willing to fight for it at risk of his own life. I do not however agree that he has a duty to "die for it." Since you are still alive, it seems you don't either.
It doesn't.
This is, quite simply, untrue, conterfactual, dissembling, a canard, a lie, or whatever other word you like to use for a deliberately false statement.
Let me tell you the LP's with which I've had personal affiliation: Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New York, and Pennsylvania. All require this pledge as a precondition for voting membership. Furthermore, it is an absolute requirement of any state or local party the inclusion of which implies membership in the National LP--which is every LP I know of--because the National LP requires this pledge.
Here is the exact wording on the LP of PA's membership form:
4. Membership oath (MUST be signed, by NEW members only):
I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force or fraud as a means of achieving political or social goals.
x___________________________.
[Italics mine, emphasis in the original.] Look here, since you don't think this OATH is REQUIRED: LP of PA membership application.
In fine and in sum, this is what I object to about your post: you claimed I was wrong, but you have produced no evidence other than your own contradictory and silly hair-splitting statements to this effect. You seem to think you're talking to some ignorant authoritarian conservative who doesn't know anything about the LP, rather than someone who had been a member for almost 30 years. I know what I'm talking about. I've presented proof, and you have not. All that you've done is equivocate about the difference in meaning between "initiated force" and "aggression." There is none. You've quibbled about the fact that this pledge is not an oath; if giving your word means anything, it is the exactly same thing. If you have problems with this, take it up with Merriam Webster, not me:
Entry Word: promise
Function: noun
Text: a person's solemn declaration that he or she will do or not do something
Synonyms oath, pledge, troth, vow, word
In Pennsylvania where I had been a member since 1987, it is actually called an oath.
What I am angry about is a waste of several decades arguing with my friends that the LP was not a group of idiotic Utopians, stoners and kooks, but was indeed a principled party. The incineration of 3000 Americans on 9/11/2001 and the feckless and flaccid responses made by the LP, Cato, and many other Libertarian "thinkers" has convinced me that my Republican friends were right, and I was wrong. It was a bitter pill to swallow, indeed.
The only real hope for the advancement of libertarian principles is the Republican Party. The LP isn't willing to do more than write position papers. That's all very highbrow but it won't protect American liberty, or American lives.