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Election victory at all costs holds little appeal to people who oppose the policies of both main parties. It is also the height of arrogance for any side of politics to claim ownership over a particular set of votes, which is clearly implied when third-party candidates are said to have "taken" votes away from Republicans or Democrats. If these politicians want libertarians to vote for them, then they should be less hostile to libertarian values.

A new survey of likely voters in North Carolinaraisesthe prospect of yet another libertarian spoiler candidate.

The CNN/ORC Internationalpoll has Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) pulling 46 percent of votes and Republican challenger Thom Tillis 43 percent, with a 4 percent margin of error. However, the poll also has Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh polling at 7 percent of the vote. If this proves to be an accurate prediction of election results, it will undoubtedly lead to Sean Haugh being labelled a spoiler by whichever side ends election night with a concession speech.

Haugh credits his strong poll numbers to an increased awareness of the libertarian brand, a significant change from when he ran for Senate in 2002. Libertarian is a household word now, he told The Washington Post. Everybody knows what it means.

Sowho is Sean Haugh? According to thePosts July profile, Haugh is a 53-year-old pizza deliveryman who comes across as both folksy and erudite, funny and earnest.

Read more via Poll Predicts Libertarian Spoiler in North Carolina Senate Race Hit & Run : Reason.com.

From the national LP headquarters

Libertarians sue Kentucky public television for First Amendment violation

A federal constitutional lawsuit, filed today against Kentucky Educational Television in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, stems from its new exclusionary policy regarding public debates, eliminating Libertarian participation. The plaintiffs in the case are Libertarian David Pattersons campaign for U.S. Senate, the Libertarian Party of Kentucky, and the Libertarian National Committee..

Originally posted here:
September | 2014 | Libertarian Hippie

In a column written just before the election, prominent Harvard Law School Professor and former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein channels the great libertarian economist F.A. Hayeks classic critique of conservatism in his advice to the new GOP majority in Congress:

Instead of conservatism, Hayek argued for a principled commitment to liberty an approach that would sharply constrain government and take an essentially radical position, directed against popular prejudices, entrenched positions and firmly established privileges. Its fair to say that in the current period, Hayeks radical position would entail a strong commitment to free trade, a rejection of protectionism, decreased regulation, deep skepticism about occupational licensing (and other barriers to entry), a firm commitment to religious liberty, and less frequent appeals to patriotism as a substitute for freedom-protecting reforms

In his short essay, Hayek did not deliver a knockout punch against conservatism. But he did land some powerful blows, not least in his objection that conservatives cannot easily work with people whose values differ from their own.

In the coming period, however, Republicans will be under increasing pressure to define themselves affirmatively rather than by opposition. One of their chief goals should be to identify freedom-promoting initiatives that might attract support from people who cannot, by temperament or otherwise, be counted as conservative. They would do well to begin with a close reading of Hayek.

Sunsteins advice that the GOP pursue a radical Hayekian libertarian agenda may be in some tension with his recent critique of paranoid libertarianism, (which I commented on here). Still, I agree with him that Hayeks critique of conservatism remains relevant today. And I would be very happy if the new Republican-controlled Congress were to advance Hayekian reforms of expanding liberty and cutting back government regulation, while also eschewing appeals to nationalism.

Obviously, however, the GOP does not consist solely or even primarily of libertarians who feel the same way as I do. It has many other elements, including a still-strong social conservative contingent that party leaders must cater to in order to hold their coalition together. I am also skeptical about how much support a radical libertarian agenda (or even a moderate one) would attract from Sunsteins fellow liberal Democrats.

That said, I think it is possible to envision the GOP evolving in a more libertarian direction over the next few years. With the very important exception of immigration, the party emphasized libertarian ideas far more than social conservative ones in the fall election. Significantly, they did not even make much of an issue out of the rapidly growing trend towards acceptance of same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization.

Some Republicans have even begun to rethink the War on Drugs and the mass imprisonment it generates. The Tea Party the most dynamic part of the GOP in recent years has largely focused on fiscal and economic issues, and has a substantial libertarian component (though it also has many social conservatives in its ranks).

Meanwhile, younger Republicans are far more socially liberal than their elders. For example, a recent survey finds that 61% of 18-29 year old Republicans support same-sex marriage, and many also support marijuana legalization. Generational succession will likely give such views greater weight in the party over time. By contrast, young Republicans are generally no less suspicious of government spending and economic regulation than older ones. The GOP is still very far from being a libertarian party, and it may never fully become one. But it could well become significantly more libertarian over the next few years than it has been at any time in the recent past.

It is also possible that libertarian-leaning Republicans can cooperate with liberal Democrats on some issues, including cutting back on the War on Drugs, and NSA surveillance, among others. At the same time, past attempts to build a liberaltarian alliance have had only extremely limited success, in part because the gap between libertarians and the left on many issues is very large.

Read the original here:
Volokh Conspiracy: Cass Sunstein channels Hayek

The buzz in the room is almost deafening as about 30 Libertarian candidates and party supporters gather around the three flat-screen TVs inside the dimly lit Jalisco Cantina on Tuesday night.

Fk you, dude! Tasha Heath, co-founder of the Southern Nevada Watchdogs group, shouts above the rest as local news stations show Governor Brian Sandoval making his victory speech.

Im a liberty person, not a party person, she says as she explains how her dislike of the governor stems from his forcing taxes and Republican beliefs on us.

Many others in the room echo her sentiments as they angrily call out at the television.

Sitting at a table with friends and volunteers, Libertarian candidate for Congressional District 4, Steve Brown, is oblivious to the commotion as he tracks his opponents election results through his cellphone.

Hes behind, he says, comparing Democratic incumbent Steven Horsfords numbers to Republican candidate Cresent Hardys. Hes behind by about 2,000 votes.

For the past few months, Brown and his supporters have been campaigning in the neighborhoods of Congressional District 4, which includes the area of West Las Vegas, near Bonanza Road and Rancho Drive.

He says he joined the political race with the everyday American in mind, which is why he ran on the platform of legalizing marijuana, stopping the war on drugs and halting the taxation of the American people.

Brown, who works as both a licensed masonry contractor and a table games dealer at the Four Queens Hotel, considers politics a labor of love.

Although he and many of his fellow Libertarian candidates do not expect to win any office, they thrive on the idea of making themselves heard and taking votes away from the major contenders.

See original here:
Libertarians hopeful despite disappointing election results

Unschooling Made Me a Libertarian
Unschooling Made Me a Libertarian.

By: Cbnmj23

Read the original here:
Unschooling Made Me a Libertarian - Video

Conventional wisdom holds that Libertarian Party candidates draw votes away from Republican candidates. However, some exit polling from Tuesdays midterms shows that wisdom may not be true.

Reasons Brian Doherty looked at the exit polling in North Carolina and Virginia and found that its not necessarily true.

It isnt common for Democrats to accuse Libertarians of spoiling elections for them, but a look at NBC News exit polls show that Haugh voters indeed came more from people who consider themselves moderate (5 percent of self-identified moderates went Haugh) and even liberal (4 percent of liberals voted for Haugh) than from conservatives (only 2 percent of whom voted for Haugh). Those were the only three choices for self-identification.

Only 1 percent each of self-identified Democrats or Republicans voted Haugh, while 9 percent of Independents did. (Those again were the only choices.) (Independents otherwise went 49-42 for Tillis over Hagan.)

In other exit poll results, Haughs portion of the vote fell pretty steadily as age groups got olderhe got 9 percent of the 18-24 vote, and only 2 percent of the 50-and-over crowd.

Haugh did strongest among white women in race/gender breakdowns, with 5 percent of that crowd, and only 1 percent of black men or black womanand no polled number of Latino men or women.

Other interesting Haugh exit poll results: His overall man/woman breakdown was the same, 4 percent of each in the exit poll. Haughs numbers got progressively smaller as voter income got biggerhe earned 6 percent of the under-$30K vote but only 1 percent of the over-$200K vote. Libertarians arent just for plutocrats.

As Doherty points out in an earlier piece, Sean Haugh, the Libertarian candidate in North Carolina, ran as a left-libertarian who was generally opposed to cutting social services. As for Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian candidate in Virginia, Doherty believes that Sarvis may have cost Ed Gillespie the Senate race. However, Sarvis e-mailed Doherty and says otherwise:

One cant assume the 3 percent Rs would be voting [Gillespie] in my absenceits quite likely these R voters would have joined the 7 percent of Rs voting for Warner. Polls throughout the race showed Warner enjoying double-digit support among Rs, and a fair number of Rs told us they cant stomach voting for [Gillespie]. A lot of business-type Republicans consider Warner acceptable, so probably many Rs who really disliked [Gillespie] voted for me because I was preferable to Warner, but would otherwise have voted Warner not Gillespie. So those R Sarvis voters were taken from Warner not Gillespie.

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