This: ^^^^^^^^^^^ It is only out of current mainstream thinking because the other parties have strayed so far from our beginnings.
While I generally agree with many of your posts, basing your vote on a single issue is a head scratcher. For anyone or any single issue. I hope this is not true of you, but single issue voters often are willing to ignore issues that are far more important than their pet issue. Often to the detriment of their own best interests.
I suppose it depends on the issue. I posit that single issue voters who voted based on opposition to slavery were doing the right thing. I see the war on drugs as the single most important civil rights issue of our time. The harms this policy has created have a huge impact on our society in a wide variety of contexts. Ending the drug war has the potential to positively impact our society as much as the CRA and VRA did in the '60s. TBH, a large part of the reason I'm a single issue voter is because in Texas, it really doesn't matter who I vote for on the national level. The Republicans went from the rational, fiscally responsible voice in the room all the way to Crazytown and the Democrats won't be able to carry this state for at least two more decades. As such, Libertarian or bust for me for the foreseeable future.
Don't worry, he's not really a one issue voter, it's just that he's long claimed to be a Libertarian even though he disagrees with almost everything Libertarians stand for. He found one issue that he agrees with them and in order to keep pretending he's a Libertarian, he has to say that's the only thing he cares about. You and I both know he's a Democrat.
I understand your point about voting in Texas at the national level. However, many large metropolitan areas in Texas lean Democratic. The average Democrat would be much closer to winning than any libertarian and would be more likely to hold more than your single issue in common. A straight ticket vote in those areas would do a lot of good down ballot.
Yet another pile of bullsh!t spews its way out of Bobby's keyboard. I am dramatically more Libertarian than the idiots who claim to be so, but then vote for Republicans. There are issues where I agree with the conservative line, others where I am more in tune with the Democrats. That's one of the reasons Libertarian fits me better, fiscally conservative, but socially "I don't give a *****" (paraphrased from a recent Gary Johnson interview). I do find it hilarious that you are so consumed with hubris that you actually believe that you can more accurately label someone's partisan proclivities than can that person themselves.
Our beginnings included human slavery and bloodletting as a medical treatment, along with all sorts of other ridiculous things. Thank ****ing god (who does not exist) that we are beyond that.
OK I just went back and read the beginning of this, since it had been about 6 years. I take back what I said, it's not a good introduction to libertarianism. Too focused on the right then (2010) and just too much; an introduction should be shorter and more concise. Plus the author's biases show through. I guess the best way to learn about libertarianism is to read about the non-aggression principle (NAP) and see where that takes you on the internet.
