Going back a few rants....
The "all taxation is armed robbery" angle is an interesting philosophical ramble. It is, of course, true, insofar as if you stop and think about it,
eventually the government is going to use guns to get your money. But saying it over and over also makes libertarians look like loony, dope-smoking utopian ideologues insetad of a potentially credible political force in the United States. People are used to Big Lies, telling them the truth all at once just makes you look insane.
"No taxes, period? Gee, are they promising free beer and rub-downs from the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders whenever I want, too?"
Run a party platform that disavows national armed forces, and you might as well be asking people to vote for the Christian Falangist Party of America... politically suicidal. It would make Howard Dean look like Geroge S. Patton.
"Wow, these libertarians make me crave the unbridaled militarism of Michael Dukakis..."
Maybe there is a good argument to be had about that, but it will be about 200 years AFTER Libertarians first become politically relevant in the United States... which may or may not happen at all at some undisclosed time in the future.
It kind of reminds me of what I read about all the small right-wing parties that were floating around Germany in the 1920s. They were full of ideas (mostly bad in their case), and talked about their ideas over beer all the time. They also had their lunch eaten by somebody who could actually
do politics. The Nazis hardly had any ideas at all... people joked about them in the 1930s that their ideology was "the World as Will Without Idea," and we can agree that any ideas that they did have were bad ones. But it just didn't matter. Being right in politics means exactly NOTHING if you never get power to do something about it.
Me, I think the Libertarian party needs to learn how to do politics better.
In any event, in 2000 the Greens' showing was due to having a celebrity candidate, Nader, and I really doubt they'll do as well this year.
In 2000, the Greens were the only people on the TV aside from Democrats and Republicans, and maybe that fascist Pat Buchannan. With a washed-up grade-Z "celebrity" the Green Party pounded the Libertarians into goo. And let's face it, Nader is about as inconsequential and dull as you can get and still qualifiy as a "celebrity," it isn't like the Greens got Oprah to run on their ticket or something. They did a better job than the Libertarians at the national level by an order of magnitude or two, not just in picking their candidate. And national visibility matters, even if you aren't ready to win national office yet. You can't run bland nullities and expect results, and the apparent total non-grasp of that simple idea by the LP speaks volumes.
