Libertarian Infighting and Bitcoin

[Westin Landon Cox]

In 1980, less than a decade after the formation of the Libertarian Party, their presidential ticket managed to get over 1% of the popular vote. As a percentage, it's the best they've ever done.

By 1983 the party was fractured by infighting. The details aren't important. Names were called (anarchists!, Kochtopus!), tribes were formed, groups walked away.

It reminds me a bit of what's happening now with the Bitcoin block size debate.

Maybe in 30 years people will look back and say that Bitcoin had its best year in 2013. Then in 2015 it was fractured by infighting, and that the details are no longer important. It's a depressing possibility, but I'm starting to think it's a real one. And I have no constructive suggestions for how to avoid it. I have no idea how the fracturing of the LP in the early 1980s could've been avoided.

[Harry Hood]

There's a big difference (but I'm no expert.)

Libertarian party had infighting due to egos and approach, but they had no tangible thing that was driving the value of the idea?

Bitcoin has some fighting, but it's not infighting. I suppose Gavin has the support of all core developers and the rest of us don't have a vote (therefore our name calling, frustration or support is irrelevant.) The next important group is the miners and they're going to choose whatever method allows them to continue to get paid (via transactions and selling their mined bitcoin).

Bitcoin has an existing, accepted infrastructure. It doesn't require voting and increased adoption to exist - it could service 10% of the transaction market and live on forever.

[BADecker]

Unfortunately, Libertarians are right, and so are libertarians. Capital "L" Libertarians are the political ones, who want much of the same things that the Dems and Reps want.

The small "l" libertarians want no real political activity at all. They fight because they are ignorantly unaware that the 6th, 7th, and 9th Amendments render government ineffective... if the people want to neutralize government, individually, at any time... or in joint, simply by using the amendments to neutralize government.

Both of them are right about the other, and both of them are wrong, at the same time. And it is born out of ignorance.

Google and Youtube search "Karl Lentz" and "Bill Thornton" and "Richard Cornforth" for practical info along these lines.

[Chef Ramsay]

The problem in the LP community is the purists vs the pragmatists, the latter whom are often vilified as not worth their LP salt. I've been there (and) in the LP community as both a Pure and Prag in mindset but have shifted back to the GOP thanks to the Paul name as it's obvious that 3rd parties aren't going anywhere anytime soon thanks to ballot access laws. The squabbling in the LP is a waste but it makes the personalities in said party feel some meaning but the major parties go on. The LP is only a protest party and shouldn't be taken seriously at all and especially in the major party primary season.

[BADecker]

The problem in the LP community is the purists vs the pragmatists, the latter whom are often vilified as not worth their LP salt. I've been there (and) in the LP community as both a Pure and Prag in mindset but have shifted back to the GOP thanks to the Paul name as it's obvious that 3rd parties aren't going anywhere anytime soon thanks to ballot access laws. The squabbling in the LP is a waste but it makes the personalities in said party feel some meaning but the major parties go on. The LP is only a protest party and shouldn't be taken seriously at all and especially in the major party primary season.

However, as more and more people are trained in the method built right into the Constitution and Bill of Rights for "conquering" government with common law (actually a process that government uses to trick the people out of common law into subjection to the legal system), libertarianism will become more popular.

Bitcoin may become a focal point in all this, because it is a right of the people to NOT be taxed, and Bitcoin is outside of taxation. Bitcoin might be the hinge that sets retraining of the American masses regarding common law into place.

[Beliathon]

Libertarians are clueless suburban white american kids with republican parents. They don't know shit about fuck, they don't know what the word 'privilege' means, and you should just ignore them like all other intelligent people on the internet do.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/noam-chomsky-kind-anarchism-i-believe-and-whats-wrong-libertarians?sc=fb

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/opinion/paul-krugman-the-libertarian-fantasy.html?_r=0

[countryfree]

You can't compare a political party with BTC. A political party needs constant people's involvement, whereas BTC has a life of its own, with all the miners mining. There might also have some bots doing automatic trades.

[Westin Landon Cox]

The problem in the LP community is the purists vs the pragmatists, the latter whom are often vilified as not worth their LP salt. I've been there (and) in the LP community as both a Pure and Prag in mindset but have shifted back to the GOP thanks to the Paul name as it's obvious that 3rd parties aren't going anywhere anytime soon thanks to ballot access laws. The squabbling in the LP is a waste but it makes the personalities in said party feel some meaning but the major parties go on. The LP is only a protest party and shouldn't be taken seriously at all and especially in the major party primary season.

That's similar to how I feel about the LP.

I get some sense of this purist vs. pragmatist split in the block size debate too. Oh shit. Scary thought: just like some "pragmatic" supporters of the LP migrated to be part of factions of the GOP, what if disappointed Bitcoiners end up leaving to become a small part of Ripple. Now I need to suppress the urge to vomit.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Libertarians are clueless suburban white american kids with republican parents. They don't know shit about fuck, they don't know what the word 'privilege' means, and you should just ignore them like all other intelligent people on the internet do.

Seems a little racist. Especially since you seem to acknowledge that libertarians represent a minority group.