It was asked what goals the Libertarian Party has achieved in the years between 1971 and 2008. The questioner, of course, makes the error of equating the LP with general libertarianism. A mistake on the face of it as far as I know, most of the people who identify themselves with libertarianism are not members of the party, and most of the prominent libertarians will wave their hands and stage fits if you want to equate them with the Libertarian Party.
Let us now go towards the FSP. The project's aim, in accordance with its founding principles, is to get people with generally libertarian views to move to the state. It does not do any organizational work within the state at all. That said, the very existance of the Project has acted in an invigorating fashion on those libertarians that reside in New Hampshire already, allowing the creation of various activist groups in the state, and getting libertarians to join, and volunteer for,
NHLA, GONH [which is naturally not a 'libertarian' group, but obviously the vision of furthering gun rights is common to us all on this forum]. Several FSP members have won various offices, including a guy called
Joel Winters in the state legislature. That's some pavement-pounding right there.
Than there's
Liberty Scholarship.
At the current time, libertarians (small 'l' or big L) are not likely to win any major elections anywhere, but they are able to some extent to affect the platform of the two major parties, their primaries, and so forth.
What the entire Ron Paul thing has done to what degree it is difficult to judge is to get many Libertarians to join the various GOP state organizations, to become precinct committee members and so forth. It's not much, but I'm not expecting much, as of now. If it works out and it might not work out, especially if McCain wins we're going to see the libertarian wing of the GOP get larger.
As for the accomplishments of libertarians in general, I remind you gently that it is the Cato Institute that started
Heller v. DC.
P.S. Ron Paul's loss is of course not only the libertarians' loss, it is the Republicans' loss. Had he been elected, he'd give the Republicans many Republican stuff (lower taxes, for instance), in exchange for one major issue of ending the War in Iraq (few people genuinely care about the monetary policy of the United States, or are equipped intellectually to argue for, or against, Keynesian monetary policy, or monetarism, or free banking, or the gold standard. Nor is central banking going away any time in the next, say, two decades. No matter who is President.) They decided the War was the one key issue, because the impending threat of 'Radical Islam' was the most terribly important thing. Essentially, it was the revival of W. F. Buckley's idea that huge government is awesome, if it just lets you beat the Soviets.
P.P.S. You do realize the people selling the Free Staters Go home stickers are raving 'progressive' socialists?
Get your
Free Staters Go Home! stickers here!
