on the floor about free markets, or vote for laws to protect civil
liberties, you darn well better have a D or an R beside your name.
When I arrived in Congress, I was struck by the architecture.
Everything is bifurcated. Two cloakrooms each for the Senate
and House chambers. Two backrooms for every hearing room
in the Capitol. I marveled at how two centuries of architects had
successfully conspired, with marble, granite, and oak, to exclude
a third party.
Truth be known, there are at least six parties in Congress, but
they’re shoehorned into the American concept of red team vs.
blue team. If you want to field another team, you have to either
completely replace one that’s there now (within an election cycle
or two) or work inside one that already exists. The most expedi-
ent path for libertarians is to work within the red team.
(To everyone with Trump Derangement Syndrome, please
calm the hell down—I am not advocating that libertarians work
with Russians.)
If a pure-as-the-wind-driven-snow Libertarian actually got
elected, how long would he or she last before selling out? About
an hour. You see, the first thing we do at the beginning of every
Congress is to swear an oath to the Constitution as it exists, not
as we want it to exist. Even after being trued up with 27 Amend-
ments, the document is still chock full of stuff that sends many
Libertarians into apoplexy: eminent domain, intellectual prop-
erty, income tax, government-regulated currency, and those
oh-so-dreadful post roads. “Support and defend” that at your
national convention!
Now that I’ve fully alienated half my Twitter and Face book
followers, let me make the counter-case for the Libertarian Party.
There’s a concept in Congress that we conservatives call
True North. When you succumb to pragmatism and pursue a
path that’s 10 or 20 degrees off True North, it’s best to admit, if
only to your trusted colleagues, that you’ve gone a bit squishy—
because if you don’t, you’ll soon forget where North is. Some
of our Republican colleagues have their compass settings 180AFFIRMATIVE:
Republicans Get
Elected; Libertarian
Party Members Don’t
REP. THOMAS MASSIE
IT’S MY OBSERVATION that libertarians argue about a lot of things,
but at the end of the day we all want to reduce the size and scope
of the federal government. So is it wise or useful for libertarians
who want to shrink government to run for office as Libertar-
ians? My answer is the same as my vote on the Republican ver-
sion of Obamacare this term: Hell no!
First, there’s the existence proof. Even on the worst days,
there are two libertarians [Massie and Rep. Justin Amash (R–
Mich.)] on the floor of the House of Representatives. On the
best days there are a dozen. None of these libertarians are in the
Libertarian Party. So if you want to introduce libertarian bills,
force roll call votes to expose faux fiscal conservatives, speak
48 OCTOBER 2018 Illustration: Public domain
PROPOSITION:
Libertarians
Should Work
Within the
Two-Party System