Again, I’m not trying to be harsh with you in particular (I hope you don’t take it that way either), I just think the modern Republican platform/ party is beyond silly (and justification for that matter).
If anything the republican party just creates fodder for the left and seriously discredits capitalism. They scream about capitalism, and when in power setup fascism. Most people on the left are justified in their hatred of capitalism, they think it’s what the republican party has always brought to them, fascism.
I do think the republican party hurts us, they discredit our terms, and mis-represent the mechanics of the economic system. If I was economically ignorant I’d be running from them as well.
On your points on money, you’ve done a fine job of illustrating why most of us here have no interest in either party. To say “we can’t take a position that challenges the status quo on central banking because we think we’d fail” is not quite true, but if it were, it wouldn’t be much of a reason to support that party.
The original question was about libertarians, not the LP. I didn’t take it to be about the GOP hurting the LP at the polls. I took it to be about the GOP hurting libertarians and/or liberty. It hurts libertarians in that our arguments are linked in the public imagination to the arguments of a bunch of corporate welfare types, and people can’t hear “free market” without hearing “crony capitalism” due to the behavior of the GOP. The GOP cynically uses libertarian talking points while promoting something that is just as far from a free market as what the Dems suggest. That the GOP destroys liberty in the country goes without saying - I for one certainly remember a world without the Patriot Act, Real ID, nationalized airport security, a prescription drug benefit, the ADA… I am not old enough to remember, but can read in books, about Nixon, the gold window, wage and price controls… and that cynical bastard Stein has the nerve to go on about free markets…even Chomsky has pointed this out, saying that he could not understand how any libertarians could support Reagan, while Reagan was promoting facism in the name of free markets, simultaneously taking away economic freedoms while smearing the free market cause.
Welp, it’s like Sowell says, politics has much less to do with facts and logic than what people believe. Maybe the libertarians should trademark all their terminology and then no one will be able to use it without libertarian consent. Lol, I’m just kidding, it’s a joke.
Also, I get what you mean about separating libertarian ideology from the LP but you know…this is a thread about Republicans and we’re a political party. So it’s kinda weird to have a discussion about political ideology without having a discussion about political parties. But I get what you mean nonetheless, don’t worry.
As people have been saying, Republicans really hurt libertarians, because they falsely represent capitalism and free markets. Every time I throw out an argument, I have some sort of response talking about how free markets failed under Reagan or Bush. Its incredibly hard to get past this block in people’s mind. This is the Republicans fault; they had a lot of power and used it unwisely and misrepresented legitimate ideas.
When Republicans win elections, we do not win anything. They are just as destructive, if not more so, than the Democrats. When the Democrats screw up, we can point to it and talk about how big government fails. When Republicans screw up, we have to explain how it wasn’t actually free markets and how it also shows that big government fails. As a party, the Republicans are patently anti-liberty and only a select few of their members deserve even a small amount of support. The party as a whole is an appalling show.