I no longer wish to be associated with the Libertarian Party.

A few days I wrote about how the federal government is confiscating laptops and removing all the data to search through it. This is being done as people travel into the country. Individuals have no guarantees that the information found there won’t get out or be used privately by others. They simply must trust the government. No reasonable suspicion is required for the feds to do this. They can do it any time they damn well please. And they will.

The purported reason is to catch child pornography. Most people are rightfully upset by the topic and the government realizes that when people are in a moral panic it is easy to get them to surrender rights. Government uses child porn the way it uses “terrorism”. It helps whip up hysteria in order to expand federal powers. And those powers will be used mostly for entirely other purposes. These are not the reasons for the powers, they are merely the excuses.

The big government crowd will attack anyone questioning such expansive federal powers of being in league with terrorists or supporting child pornography. They know that isn’t the case but they hope it will shut them up.

One would think that o alleged libertarians would understand how government works. It uses legitimate problems, though vastly exaggerated, to justify illegitimate powers. Then those new powers are used for purposes totally unrelated to the issues which were hyped to justify their existence. Those who joined the campaigns to denounce the evils didn’t actually manage to fight the evils they wanted to get. Instead they gave government a justification for doing entirely different, entirely evil, things. Join the moral campaigns of government is the quickest way to become a collaborator with evil

Now the Libertarian Party has joined the hysteria and demanded more government. The party’s Executive Director released a statement calling for “increased communication between state and federal agencies” and demanded that “more needs to be done to track down and prosecute the twisted individuals who exploit innocent children.” This is pandering to a popular hysteria which is vastly exaggerated by government goons. That the LP has joined this hysteria is shocking.

I have to wonder if the Exeutive Director is empowered to act unilaterally like this. Or did he just assume these powers the way Bush does? Who approved a spokesman for the so-called Libertarian Party to demand “more action” by the federal government?

What is interesting about these conservatives is that they flit back and forth on the issues. When bigots like Barr justify antigay views or when neoconservative Wayne Allan Root wants to justify his postions against social freedom, they resort to “let the state’s enforce” these laws. Now the LP conservatives at head office are demanding more federal action. Where in the Constitution is the federal government given any powers over obscenity?

What the LP has effectively done is call for an expansion of federal powers beyond those in the Constitution. Or more precisely they have endorsed that expansion since the feds have moved into that field long ago. This isn’t even constitutionalism. This is big government.

And why do these Right-wing libertarians believe that the federal government will act in the limited way they say they want. They want more active federal policing but ask the feds to respect rights in the process. How stupid are these people? This is like asking a lion to not eat Springbok. It goes against the very nature of the beast.

Former LP presidential candidate, Harry Browne, made an important point on the war in Irag and Afghanistan. He said that libertarians who supported the war seemed to foolishly believe that the government would fight the war precisely the way these “liberventionists” wanted. Every advocate of expanded government power makes the same mistake. They always believe that it can done in the clean sort of way that they want.

What the morons, who took over the LP, think is that federal agents will have good evidence before they act. They seem to believe that only “perverts” will be targeted by this increased “federal action”. And they seem to think that the feds will act within the Bill of Rights. They probably believe in Santa Claus.

Government doesn’t work that way. Government is a sledgehammer swatting flies. You can bet it kills some flies but the collateral damage is massive. Libertarians used to know this. So what the hell is happening with the LP?

I fear it has been taken over by conservatives who are pissed at Bush and the GOP. It is no longer libertarian. These conservatives have run bigots for office who make my blood run cold. They ran conspiracy nuts who ranted like crazed Birchers. They invited the bigoted drug warrior Bob Barr to join the party and put him on the National Committee. Now we have the spectacle of a neocon like Wayne Allen Root in the presidential race. Two of the top three contenders in the LP presidential race are not even libertarians. And the head office morons seems fine with that.

Now these bureaucrats issue a press statement calling for “more federal action” in policing obscenity laws.

My activity in the Party goes back three decades. I’ve run for office for the Party and given hundreds of hours of my time to party activities. I’ve certainly questioned whether the LP was the best strategy but always was glad it existed. No longer is that the case. I now believe the Libertarian Party is destructive to the libertarian message. The kind of people who are running the national office, along with candidates like Root and Barr are a clear indication that some of the worst kind of conservatives are dominating the party.

As of today I no longer wish to be considered sympathetic to the Libertarian Party. It has strayed too far away from liberty toward social conservatism. It is no longer the party of social tolerance but one that promotes vile bigots like Barr. It no longer wants less govenment but puts out press releases demanding more federal action in a field not authorized by the Constitution.

My previous dismay about the state of LP had me believing that it was not worth funding simply because it wasn’t worth the resources it flushed down the electoral drain. Then my complaint was that the party was an inefficient use of resources. Now I see it very differently. The LP is not just an inefficient way of promoting libertarianism, it is actually destructive to that cause. The Libertarian Party ought to die. It is harming libertarianism.

I’m sure that when that party falls apart, and I believe there is a good chance that the campaign teams of Root and Barr will do a lot to bring about this destruction, that the fringe Right types will go back to the GOP. The party of principle sold out the principles and now it is merely seeking power. And as it seeks power it destroys the libertarian message. I have to say that at this time I consider the Libertarian Party as the enemy of libertarianism. I hope its death is quick and complete. And I urge libertarians to withdraw their membership from the party, cease funding the party or its candidates, and pledge not to vote for any LP candidates. There are plenty of good, educational campaigns that one can fund instead. But money given to the LP or its candidates helps betray the libertarian message. Boycott the LP.