This thread is for discussion or debate about the practicality or impracticality of the political process as a means for the purpose of counteracting, reducing and ultimately abolishing political power. Questions worth exploring are: How meaningful is voting? How does the incentive structure of representative democracy affect the likelyhood of meaningful change in the direction of liberty? How likely does legislation truly carry out its intended purposes in an efficient way? How does the political process relate to the concept of interventionism? What is the empirical record of the effects of libertarian and classical liberal attempts to use the political process in the past and present? Does a trojan horse strategy in which one tries to abolish the state from within really make that much sense? What say you?
You are also welcome to vote in the poll about the practicality of the political process:
No; I think the RP "R3volution" has proven the impracticality of politics to be abundtantly clear, for much of the very reasons Stefan Molyneux gave in his postmortem (which, I admit I'm a few months late in reading...) here: http://freedomain.blogspot.com/2008/02/ron-paul-revolution-postmortem.html.I've been burned too many times (metaphoricaly) by the political process, the few history classes I've taken (so far) have repeatedly exposed me to the failures of the political process, and my time on this forum & my own self-directed education have repeatedly confirmed my suspicions in politics itself. Alas, that is all ancedotal, but I think the RP campaign was symbolic of the failure that has been political libertarnism since the inception of the LP, and before so when the classical liberals fell under utilitarianism in some misguided effort to save face against the statists. I can answer that the meaning in voting has been greatly questioned by myself in the past month or two; despite switching political affiliations last year for RP, I am considering finally switching to "unaffiliated", or seeing if there is a way for me to "un-register" myself totally.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
I registered with the LP about 3 or 4 years ago. I never actually involved myself in any matters within the party and quickly became alarmed with the bureaucratic and moderate way that the party functioned and was heading towards. I noticed that they had a new caucas of "moderate" libertarians who watered their platform down and disassociated themselves from and even outright attacked the more radical elements from within the party. I technically still am registered as a "Big L" Libertarian but I've never voted the entire time, except in the Ohio state elections on a state-wide smoking ban and levy for more taxes for the schools a few years ago. Not surprisingly, all the expansionist and rights-violating measures passed anyways.
Anyways, I still get LP pamphlets, mostly begging me for money. I always just ignore them and read the Mises Institute pamphlets that I get instead.
Brainpolice: I registered with the LP about 3 or 4 years ago. I never actually involved myself in any matters within the party and quickly became alarmed with the bureaucratic and moderate way that the party functioned and was heading towards. I noticed that they had a new caucas of "moderate" libertarians who watered their platform down and disassociated themselves from and even outright attacked the more radical elements from within the party. I technically still am registered as a "Big L" Libertarian but I've never voted the entire time, except in the Ohio state elections on a state-wide smoking ban and levy for more taxes for the schools a few years ago. Not surprisingly, all the expansionist and rights-violating measures passed anyways. Anyways, I still get LP pamphlets, mostly begging me for money. I always just ignore them and read the Mises Institute pamphlets that I get instead.
To me, the political process can be, at least in the short term productive. However, I voted in the bottom category, and here's why. Any time, by some sort of miracle, relatively good people get into office, like say if Ron Paul were elected, they would restore almost complete confidence in government by making the whole system much fairer. Thus, from an anarchist perspective, it would only delay the undoing of the powers of Mordor the government. Agorism, to function, needs disillusionment, not pipe-dreams about minarchist republics and constitutions.
That's not to say that Ron Paul hasn't done a lot to bring people to libertarianism in general, and in my case eventually to anarchy. Maybe if we had people pretend to run for office, while actually just grabbing attention for our cause, it would be productive...
That's an interesting take on it.