Let me start by saying that I am a libertarian (little "L"). I always have been and I always will be. Leaving the Libertarian Party is different than leaving libertarianism. One can be a Communist and not a member of the Comintern. One can be for peace and freedom without being a member of the Peace and Freedom Party.
At one time, I was a very active member of the Libertarian Party. I was a delegate to the California convention. I was treasurer for LPLAC (Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County) and treasurer for Region 62 in West Los Angeles. I attended the regular supper clubs and was at countless committee meetings brainstorming how best to promote libertarian ideas and get people on the ballot and elected. I ran for public office twice on the Libertarian ticket in the mid 1990's, first as US Congressman, and then as State Assembly candidate. In both cases, running in the districts in the Conejo Valley (northwest of Los Angeles) I garnered about 3-4% of the vote and some newspaper and internet publicity.
I left the party only recently (as referenced from the present, mid 2008). For a while I became less active to pursue raising a family, and while removed from the inner workings of the party, I had a chance to reflect on my experiences with the party and watch the party from without, reading its mailings and newsletters and the like with more of an outsider's eye. Because of this, my interest in becoming active waned, though I was still technically a member, paying my party dues for year after year. But eventually, it all became too much, and I stopped renewing. In doing so, some of my acquaintances (both libertarian and not) have asked why.
The two main reasons I left the party are as follows:
1. The party will never succeed at much of anything as long as it views itself as an arm of government rather than a private organization.
2. There is an idealogical current within the party that seems to be content with "saving" America and letting the rest of the world go to shit.
First, let me be clear that while I am a libertarian, I am what most other libertarians would regard as a "moderate" libertarian. I am not for abolishing public education (though I support school vouchers), I do believe in a limited tax scheme to pay for public services that we all use (such as police, fire, sanitation, etc.). I believe the US should keep a standing army and taxpayers should pay for that protection. In a host of other areas, I am strongly in the libertarian frame of reference, but do not drink from the kool-aid 100%.
So why have I left the party? I gave the two reasons above, and will elaborate below.
1. INEFFECTIVENESS
One reason I left the party is that I am convinced it is doomed to complete ineffectiveness due to its current paradigm...about itself! Unless and until this paradigm shifts, the party is essentially its own worst enemy and will never resolve into an effective force for change.
This paradigm is simply that the Libertarian Party must be, itself, a "libertarian" organization.
What I mean by that is that Libertarians have structured their own party to mirror the way they want government to be structured. The Libertarian Party is, unlike many of the other political parties in America (especially the big two), not a cohesive group of people united by a common cause. The Libertarian Party is, instead, a decentralized group of people working on whatever they feel like working on at the time. The national organization of most parties is quite strong. These parties are run from the top down. When the DNC wants something done, it dictates or applies massive leverage to a state chapter to get things done. The national facet of the Libertarian Party ("LP") begs instead. In the Libertarian Party, the states wield more power than the national organization, and the regions wield more power than the states.
One might think, how could this be otherwise? After all, how can a committed libertarian espouse limited government as a platform and then hypocritically reject that selfsame structure in its own party? In other words, libertarians, as a rule, are very distrustful of centralized authority and see it as anathema to their own principals. They also believe that having a strong centralized authority in the LP implies a massive dose of hypocrisy.
Because of this, the Libertarian Party is fractured, always moving in ten (or fifty or two hundred) different directions at once. And as a result, little or nothing gets done, because no one can quite agree on what to do, no one can unite enough people to do it, and no one can allocate enough party resources to support it. I cannot tell you how many genuinely decent ideas conjured up at a LPLAC meeting were, instead of being enacted, merely discussed over and over and over again at meeting after meeting for months on end. Similarly, when I was active there was a simmering debate in the Party as to what should be concentrated on...getting people elected to office or getting our ideas out in front of the public. While these may sound at first blush like the same thing, they are not.
The former, as a starting point, involved running libertarians in local elections that do not carry a lot of publicity; elections like Water Commissioner and City Council and Parks and Recreations Supervisor. The idea here was that Libertarians could win these smaller, non-partisan races, serve well in those offices without having to tout the more controversial libertarian ideas (who is going to ask the Water Commissioner his views on legalizing drugs?) and make a local name and then begin to creep into more important offices such as mayor and school boards and from there perhaps start to make inroads into state congresses.
The latter involved running Libertarians in high-profile races like governor or president or US senate where the candidates had absolutely no chance to win, but would be exposed to a larger national audience and have a better chance to get the libertarian viewpoint out to as many people as possible.
Both strategies are valid. Both have pros and cons. But the problem was the Party couldn't unite behind either strategy. As a result, they dicked around with both in a half-hearted manner and neither saw any success. That is what happens when you don't focus.
Too many Libertarians feel that a centralized, strong national party organization with a top-down approach is simply wrong on so many levels. They distrust such a structure. They feel it is contrary to libertarian principals. And they feel it is hypocritical to support the very structure one is campaigning against. After all, unlike the Democrats and Republicans, Libertarians (and most third party members) tend to skew far to the radical in the spectrum of their own political beliefs.
After all, consider why the average American is a member of the Democratic or Republican parties. Is it because they are radical espousers of Leftist or Rightist philosophies? No. The radical (or reactionary) factions in both parties, while vocal, are a small minority of the total membership. Most members of both parties are centrists...moderates. Poll after poll supports this fact. Even the active members of the two major parties are not mostly radicalized. Despite their campaign speeches and promises, most Democratic and Republican politicians and active members are decidedly centrist. Not in their rhetoric maybe, but in their actions.
Not so with the Libertarian Party. Why? Because consider who becomes an active member of the Libertarian Party and why. I feel a great many active members in the two main parties are motivated by power, fame, and wealth. Yep. What do you think motivates most of our elected officials? A genuine desire to serve the public? Not in my opinion. I think that in order to endure the rigours of the party structure, campaigning for office, and holding office, one has to be motivated by an almost pathological desire for power and its trappings (fame and wealth). But someone who becomes an active member of the Libertarian Party, who runs for office, who climbs the ranks within the LP is almost, by definition, a raving idealogue. How could he be otherwise? Who in his right mind would join the LP to gain power? Or wealth? Or fame? Or prestige? The ONLY reason someone becomes active in the LP is because he believes in the libertarian ideaology. And even moreso, consider that people like to join a winning team. Few people join or remain in a losing team. Only the fanatics do. If you become a member of the Democratic Party you join a group that has a reasonable prospect of winning elections. Same with the Republican Party. But you join the LP and you are in for no such prospects. You are in because you drink whole-heartedly from the Libertarian kool-aid.
Put bluntly, moderate libertarians join the two major parties or stay independent. Only the radicals tend to join the LP and become active in it. I was, in all respects, an exception to this.
Because those active in the LP are the most radical of idealogues, the mere thought of compromising libertarian values in order to gain power and influence and actually have a chance of succeeding is unthinkable! They would rather die than abandon their principals.
Well...guess what? You don't have to! You see, there is one problem with the Libertarian's viewpoint. It is wrong. There is nothing inherently hypocritical with a libertarian demanding a strong top-down centralized authority for the LP. There is nothing inherently anti-libertarian with such an approach. In fact, it is precisely in line with libertarianism to have a centralized, even authoritarian structure to the LP.
The problem is in the paradigm. Libertarians view their party as a "government" It isn't. Political parties are NOT governments. They are not an arm of government. Political parties are actually non-profit organizations. They are, in a very real sense, businesses.
Consider, for a moment, the radical libertarian's view of businesses. The libertarian has no problem, on an idealistic basis, with authoritarian structures in business. In fact, libertarians champion such structures politically and legally. If a business is owned by a person and that person wants to rule by such fiat that he refuses to hire blacks, according to the libertarian principal, that is his right as a business owner. Similarly, if a corporation owned by millions of shareholders votes at its annual shareholders' meeting to prohibit the hiring of women, then according to the libertarian principal, that corporation is entitled to do so (and the consuming public is, of course, entitled to register its displeasure by boycotting such businesses). If a business wants to allow smoking, or ban smoking, or allow sex in its hallways, or require its employees to have tattoos on their arms that read "Jesus sucks" then they can do so. In the libertarian paradigm, the owner(s) of a business organization are paramount. The business is their private property and they may dispose of it and run it as they wish.
Why then can't the LP itself be seen as a business organization, albeit a not-for-profit one? Why is it a libertarian has no idealogical issue working for a business run by a single authoritarian figure but views the same structure in his political party as anathema? The LP should view itself and be viewed by other Libertarians as a not-for-profit corporation. The states should be viewed as divisions of that corporation and the regions as branches of those divisions. All Libertarians would be shareholders in this corporation, voting in the board of directors at annual meetings (i.e. conventions), but once done the direction of the corporation would come from the top. Goals and resource allocation would be pooled at the national level and then allocated to local levels.
This is the only way, in my opinion, the LP will ever accomplish anything. Otherwise, the LP will remain what it is today...basically a social club for libertarians to congregate and bitch about the government. There's a reason why so many prominent celebrities label themselves as libertarians, yet refuse to be involved in the LP or support it in any way. They see the LP as at best a disorganized mob and at worst a collection of loons, radicals, and lonely nerds. Until the LP gets its act together and unites its not inconsiderable membership behind a few focused initiatives the LP will never have a prayer of becoming an effective player on the US political stage...whether that be the stage of elected office or the stage of ideas.
2. THE REST OF THE WORLD
There is what I see as an ugly undercurrent to libertarian thought, especially as it relates to the LP. That is that while the LP is willing to fight, and fight hard, for the liberties of Americans, it has absolutely no interest in the rights and liberties of anyone else in the world.
Yes, I know the LP is an American political party, and therefore by definition should be primarily concerned with issues that affect the USA. Nevertheless, the phenomenon to which I am referring is hardly just a matter of practicality. This is not an issue of worrying about problems at home and THEN dealing with problems abroad. Instead, this is a very well-ingrained ideal in the LP that the issue of the liberty of people outside the US is not an issue for the LP to concern itself with EVER.
This idea manifests itself in a variety of ways and over a plethora of issues. An example is the rampant isolationism that runs through the LP. Given that we have a voluntary army, one would think that, except for a cost (in dollars) issue, the LP would have no problem with the US taking measures that would tend to result in more freedom and individual liberties for the world abroad. This, however, is not the case. When I would query most Libertarians as to why we shouldn't use military force to oust horrible oppressive dictator X, the response would invariably be that country X is none of our business. We should never send our troops abroad to impose our will on other nations. Instead we should merely encourage the people of country X to rise up and overthrow their dictator and offer them morale support and the promise of full and unfettered free trade should they be successful.
What a load of bullshit! Where does it say that libertarianism ends at the borders of the US? Where does it say that only US citizens are deserving of individual rights? Do Libertarians begrudge the French for helping US to overthrow the shackles of Britain in the 18th century? Yes one can argue that France was at war with Britain and so they had a natural reason to aid us, but the analogy remains. It can be effectively argued that a free world that applies libertarian values worldwide is in our interests as US libertarians.
But most Libertarians don't see it that way. If a dictator rose up in, say, North Dakota and began to oppress the population of that state, Libertarians would have no qualms about raising a militia in New Mexico and tramping over 1,000 miles away to overthrow the dictator and restore freedom to North Dakota. But should a dictator arise in, say, northern Mexico, then Libertarians have an absolute problem with sending the US army 10 miles across the border to liberate those people. This is a strange and almost contradictory stance given the libertarian tendency to deny the primacy of a national government. Despite the desire of libertarians to limit the Federal government, they seem to have no problem in kow-towing to the primacy of that same government's national borders. Apparently, to the LP, the life and liberty of a person 10 miles north of the Rio Grande is worth far more than the life and liberty of one 10 miles south of that river. I find that appalling and ultimately anathema to libertarian principals.
If the LP wants to argue that US military involvement abroad is wrong because it is a war for money, is propping up a dictator, will destabilize a region or what have you...then fine. But to argue that, simply, it's not our problem, is not only unconscionable, but in the modern world's "smaller" world is short-sighted. Even as late as WW2 the US could comfortably hide behind its two oceans and remain somewhat aloof from the world's problems. That is no longer the case. Other than a few midget subs, some rice paper balloons, and a proposed long-ranged bomber never built, none of the Axis powers in WW2 had the capability to strike the US proper. In today's world, our Pearl Harbour in 2001 happened in New York City, not in some mid ocean island territory (i.e. Hawaii). Many of our potential enemies now have long-ranged missiles that can engage the US coasts without any hesitancy.
As such, it is sometimes imperative for the US to react to potential threats BEFORE it is too late. Threats to the US no longer begin when enemy troops land in Charleston. Yet the LP continues to view the world in that fashion, and such a view is not just ideaologically distasteful, it is naive and, ultimately, dangerous.
I do think there is merit in the thought that the people themselves must be willing to take action to oust their own oppressors. We certainly do not want a situation where Americans do all of the fighting and dying and the people we are trying to liberate just sit around. Not only is that not fair to us, it also breeds a population that, upon liberation, is ungrateful and has not proven itself willing to fight to preserve what we have won for them. But by the same token, in a world where modern weapons predominate and further remove the capability of the populace to exert force on their government, it is foolish for the US to sit idly by as a people intend to liberate themselves and need our help.
It was for both of these reasons that I left the LP. I have little hope that the Party will ever correct these deficiencies, though if they did I would certainly be willing to become active again. That said, I still fully intend to espouse libertarian causes and to vote Libertarian on most issues and for most candidacies.