Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
All my best,
Fran
Presently, the Constitution is totally ignored and our Presidents and Congressmen of both Parties do whatever comes to mind or seems expedient at the moment. Also, there is no check on that aspect of government that comes in the form of rules made by beaurocrats, which is most of what intrudes so thoroughly into our lives.
There is no incompatibility between Libertarianism and the Constitution. Libertarianism is, in essence, Constitutionalism.
My personal fantasy is that the FCC is sued and SCotUS puts a restraining order on it.
" I guess the first thing (a minor point, really) is that, to my knowledge, the Libertarian party isn't currently operating at the federal level. I've spoken with Sam Appelbaum of the Ontario Libertarians, and I know that they ran a couple of candidates in the last provincial election, but I don't think they have any federal aspirations right now.
More to the point: I don't think anything separates the Freedom Party from libertarians or the Libertarian parties in any serious sense. Both the Freedom Party and most libertarians support absolute rights of life, libertyandproperty.Therearesignificantnon-theoretical differences, however.
First, there are many communists who bill themselves "anarchists". They see anarchy as merely a step toward a communist revolution: the tearing down of our current society, and the imposition of a communist one via revolution. Many such communists also bill themselves as "libertarians" for the exact same reason. To my mind, they see the libertarian ideal as simply a way to make government weak so that it can be toppled by revolutionary communists. A far-fetched fantasy for them, to be sure, but it has the effect of making libertarianism a relatively hard thing to describe and a thing to be feared.
This is perhaps why Schwartz railed against "libertarians" in his essay (the title escapes me at present) in Ayn Rand's book (a collection of essays), which book is titled "The Voice of Reason". Schwartz argued, essentially, that libertarianism is prone to losing its way and to being unable to defend its principles unless its principles (i.e., rights of life, liberty and property) are backed by a guiding philosophy. In his case, the justification offerred for insisting every individual has an absolute right to his/her life, liberty and property was objectivism: (a) that which allows life to survive and thrive is moral and good, and that which causes death is immoral and evil, (b) knowledge is knowable (A is A), (c) man's ability to reason is his means of surviving and thriving, (d) the law must protect man from assaults on reason and the product of reason: it must protect every mans life, liberty and property so as to protect his freedom to survive and thrive, (e) by protecting every person's life, liberty and property, the thriving and survival of life is facilitated, hence (f) for a government to protect rights of life, liberty and property is moral and good, and for government to violate those rights is immoral and evil.
The Freedom Party is very careful to shun communists and anarchists who pose as "libertarians", but we embrace libertarians who see government as having a legitimate function: the protection of life, liberty and property rights.
Second, most libertarian parties take a rather doomed approach to politics: they try to force ideology down the throats of the electorate, and propose revolutionary change rather than gradual change. Socialism wasn't imposed in a day. Choice wasn't removed in a day. Property rights weren't removed in a day. Nor will freedom of peaceful personal choice and property rights be successfully restored in a day. Take, for example, the CPP. People have paid into it for decades. To them, it has a value. The reality may be that the CPP is run more like welfare than like a portfolio of investments, but that does not mean that those who have paid into it should be deprived of the value of their pensions. Accordingly, whereas it would be desireable to end compulsary payments into the CPP, it would be immoral simply to tell every Canadian who has paid into the CPP that they will see no pension. Instead, the moral thing would be to give them the full value of their pension as at the date on which the CPP is wound up, and to let them invest their pension moneys in the retirement plan they choose. The problem is this: what if there is not enough money to give everyone the current value of their Canada Pension? It may be necessary for government to spend on such a payout even though government spending on pensions would normally be contrary to libertarianism: years of socialism make a return to capitalism more difficult than simply cutting people off. Indeed, to simply cut them off could very well constitute a violation, by government, of each pensioner's property rights. Accordingly, a functional difference between the Freedom Party of Canada and many libertarian parties is that we would take a workable approach to restoring choice and property rights. Where a violation of choice or property can be ended quickly without major repurcussions, acting quickly is fine. If a law is discriminating against people (for example, on the ground of sexual orientation, age, etc.), then it may very well be made non-discriminatory in short order. But, where acting quickly to change a law or policy could very well violate the very principles that we are seeking to respect, or where acting quickly would have a dramatically negative impact on Canadians, a more paced and cautious remedial course must be followed.
Perhaps the best way to sum this all up is as follows: the Freedom Party of Canada is not a social club. It is not an educational organization, though it is happy to explain its policies. It is not a religion or a school of philosophy. It is not a lobby group. It is not a place for people simply to comiserate. It is a political party with long-term aspirations of winning seats in the House of Commons so that it can take responsible steps to restoring freedom of peaceful personal choice and responsibility, property rights, and non-discriminatory law and policy.
I don't know if that helps you. Hopefully it does. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Regards, Paul McKeever Chair, Freedom Party of Canada"
Huh?
The entire Libertarian movement is fueled by the Republican's abandonment of the Constitution.
The United States is indeed in sore need of a Constitutional restoration. If I were President, I would pass an executive order (to fight fire with fire) establishing an agency whose sole job it were to find violations of the Constitution, other than itself, and stop them. FDA? Poof! BATF? Poof! FTC? Poof! NEA? Poof! Payments to the UN? Poof!
Anyone who tried to attack this agency as unconstitutional would find himself in a terrible catch-22...
The problem with Libertarian and other 3rd parties is they don't appear to be able to win elections. By this I mean water commissioner, county board, school board...etc. Until they show that they can 1 win elections, and 2 govern they are doomed to be debating societies.