Appointed maybe, but elected
NO !!! I'll probably be chastised for this blog but it is time to look at the facts of this on many levels.
1.) There are NO libertarians with any experience that it requires to be elected except those which have come into the party lately such as Bob Barr & Mike Gravel.
I will expound on this later as this part of the post will be more complex then handling the state level and local level libertarians.
On the state and local level very few if any use the time they have available to educate themselves on the jobs of which they seek. The state party doesn't have the resources to help those which seek an office of state senator or state representative. Very few if any of the libertarians I know have the type of capitol to cause such a stir ala Jesse Ventura to create a ground swell to win an election. Many libertarians run for office just to keep ballot access when in all reality all they do is harm the principled positions which convinced them to run in the first place. How do you convince people to vote for you if you haven't the time or resources to make what your doing worthwhile ?? Why should people vote for individuals which haven't taken the time or studied up on the positions to form a coherent answer ??
FREEDOM & LIBERTY is great but if your elected how do you get to that point ?? You don't have the supreme power to grant that so why does it take up so much of your rhetoric in trying to get elected ?? Why do people run for positions of which they have NO knowledge nor are they willing to gain that knowledge ?? Why run for a state position or a federal position when you never held any local positions of note and thus the knowledge you possess is quite minimal ??
Libertarians have done little or nothing on the local level to build a resume which will garner them the finesse to overcome the shortcomings of belonging to a third party. The attitude of throwing your vote away is very prevalent and people WILL NOT support you unless you have done something of note.
The party does have people on the local level in many areas of the country, some of these individuals have stuck to libertarian principles while in office, while others have gone to the "dark side" and become a normal politician.
People for the most part are scared of absolute freedom as somehow they believe without government controlling every minute of your life that "anarchy" would reign supreme. To quote Mellony Burlison "anarchy doesn't mean NO rules it means NO rulers" or something close to that.
Do you really need government telling you what type of vehicle your "allowed" to park in your driveway ?? Do you really need government to tell you to stay on your own side of the highway ??
Most will say NO !! to these types of questions, except the meddling of people has allowed government to supersede in every dealing of our lives for the tiniest of things to be regulated.
Government mandates you NOT remove the catalytic converter on YOUR car, government mandates you NOT make any engine modifications to YOUR car (California) . Government mandates that all tires are equipped with a low air pressure sensor because people don't check the air pressure on the tires of their vehicles. Government mandates the types of products you are allowed to ingest into YOUR body. Government mandates the types of weeds which are allowed to grow on your property even if these plants were here from the beginning.
Most people seem destined to allow government to continue to micromanage how you will live, how YOUR money is allowed to be dispersed, what you will do in your daily lives. A short list of these items are as follows;
1. Abortion
2. Seat belts
3. Energy
4. War on Drugs
5. Prostitution
the list could be longer but these are all areas where the federal government has prevented mankind from branching out to solve these issues on the state or local level.
This my friends is why NO libertarian will ever be elected to any state or federal position. Libertarians want government to have less involvement in their lives, however many people are not comfortable unless government tells them the rules of the game of LIFE.
Bob Barr has the name recognition since he served in the U.S. Congress as a republican. He was elected as part of the Newt Gingrich led republican revolution of 1994 and he has served quite well as a "conservative" republican. Mr Barr during his tenure of service represented the views of his Georgia delegation quite well.
Mr Barr realized that government has taken to managing every portion of life and he helped in generating that power to the federal government with the passage of the
Patriot Act, which has to its credit stopped super terrorist Eliot Spitzer from visiting his paid for sex kitten in Washington D.C., the nations is so much safer now.
Mr Barr allowed for the Department of Education, HHS, EPA, and various other government entities to grow exponentially while he was in congress. It requires more than one individual to FORCE change and there are NOT enough libertarians that can actually stand on principle for it to happen.
I would still much sooner have a reformed Bob Barr then the combination of socialist/communist McCain or Obama
