Quoth Steve Linnaberry: > To expand the analogy, the LP "church"
Why expand a false analogy? The purpose of a church is to convert individuals to a specific belief. The purpose of a political party in the electoral system as it exists is to elect its candidates to office so that they can implement the party's policy goals. Within any political party, there are caucuses and ideological core groups which work to hold the party's policy goals to a preferred standard via control of the platform, leadership and candidate selection, etc., and to propagandize or educate the rank and file to their way of thinking, and that's a good thing. But in terms of "membership," the FIRST goal is to gain party identification and voter support from ALL Americans who substantially agree with the party's policy goals, regardless of WHY they agree with those policy goals. In a European-style parliamentary system, a "pure ideological party" could have some influence. A purist libertarian ideological party might be able to control 5-10% of the seats in parliament, which would mean it could swing the result on most bills one way or the other (which means that the plurality party sponsors of those bills would be willing to cater to some of the libertarian party's policy goals to get their bills passed), and that it would be able to hold out for some of its goals as compensation for helping a party with a larger plurality form the executive. The US does not have a European-style parliamentary system. That doesn't make compromise necessary, but it does make inclusion necessary -- if there's any desire to actually implement the policy goals. If there's not, then what you have is not a political party, it's a social club. Tom Knapp ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
