Between a rock and a hard place

I received a notice from the Libertarian Party yesterday that Neal Boortz has been dropped as a speaker at this year’s convention. Having never been a member of the party, nor a participant in such activities, I’m not sure how often something like this happens. I do know that Mr. Boortz is likely the most visible libertarian in this country, if not the world. I have listened to his radio talk show for several years and, while I don’t agree with him on all things, I find him to be generally reasonable and straightforward.

The rift, it appears, is due to the fact that Mr. Boortz has decided not to condone third party activity during the coming election. While it would seem to fly in the face of his own interests, particularly where they relate to the advancement of libertarianism, his decision is not one with which he alone wrestles. After the last election, I promised myself that I would never again vote for a democrat or republican. I, like most others, see the choice perpetually to be between two evils.

This being said, I did inform my current “representative”, David Price, that his vote on Cap and Trade had forever lost my support for any future office he sought. I had voted for the man since the late eighties, believing him to be a fairly reasonable democrat, and only recently paid closer attention to his actual voting record. I further informed him that when he voted for the health care power grab, he inspired me to do something that I had never done before: to actively support whatever opposition could be mounted to his continued public “service”, be they libertarian or otherwise.

Like Mr. Boortz, I find myself unwilling to accept the persistence of the current cast of buffoons, believing instead that the only hope for the continued survival of our republic is to swing congress back to the right, at least until we can awaken more people to their own as yet undiscovered affinity to libertarianism. In the case of Mr. Price, I’ve been fortunate to have found a republican who, at least on the surface, doesn’t appear to be driven by the need to force his moral code on the rest of us. Had there been a libertarian running for that office, my decision would not have been as easy. As Mr. Boortz contends, third party candidates are more likely to siphon away support of the opposition rather than the incumbent. I believe that, in the coming election, defeat of the incumbency is more important than advancement of that which will ultimately bring freedom and prosperity back to this nation.