1. - Different strategies are lution within the old form. At
required by different social that point, in despair by the
conditions, and a key point we end of the 195Os, those of us
should acknowledge is that, resisting this trend felt it im-
by forming a separate sect, perative to separate ourselves
LP caught on, its political
campaigns succeeded, by the
time of the well-financed 1980
campaign, to educate the
media and politically inter-
the Libertarian Party per- out from a Right-wing that had ested Americans on what
formed an important, neces- been captured from under us. 'libertarianism" is all about.
sary, and laudable function It became vital to separate the So that: by the early 1980%
during the 1970s. From the two sharply in our minds and most politically aware Ameri-
1930s through the first half of in the minds of the public, and cans could tell you what lib-
the 1950s, libertarians func- also to stop giving libertarian ertarianism was, and also,
tioned as an important ideo- and limited government cover while they did not necessarily
logical ginger group within the to a movement that had been agree with it, they treated lib-
broad coalition that we now transformed into virtually their ertarianism as a creed worthy
know as the 'Old," or Original, opposite. of respect and attention.
Right: a coalition forged in Finally, by the end of the All this was accom-
reaction against the horrors 1960s, a split i n Young plished by the Libertarian
of the New Deal, both domes- Americans for Freedom over Party, and nothing can take
tic and foreign. Libertarians the draft caused the growing those achievements away
felt themselves to be an 'ex- libertarian wing of YAF to be from it. But after the early
treme" and consistent wing of expelled or to get out volun- 1980s, as Kochian money
the Right, and they functioned tarily. That wing, now ready turned to a soft-core, Corridors
within the broader coalition for independent libertarian of Power strategy and left the
happily and harmoniously as political action, formed the LP, the Libertarian Party be-
friends and as ideological and Libertarian Party in 1971, and gan to become increasingly
political allies. Unfortunately, it quickly caught on as a means irrelevant. Even though most
that Old Right coalition, de- of providing an independent Americans had heard of liber-
voted to liberty, private prop- home for libertarians. At first, tarianism and even respected
erty, free markets, and an anti- the LP was dominated by a its doctrine, the Party wasn't
interventionist, America First neo-Randian, pro-war group, winning adherents, let alone
foreign policy, began to col- distinguishable from the Na- elections. More and more 'real
lapse during the late 1950s, tional Review right largely by world" people left the LP,
as death and retirement in favoring civil liberties. At the which therefore became in-
leadership ranks (84. Bob 1975 LP convention, however, creasingly flaky, increasingly
Taft, Colonel McCormick), left those of us who were dedi- libertine and culturally leftist,
a vacuum at the top that was cated 'isolationists" captured and above all, increasingly
filled by the burgeoning "New" the Party, and from then on, irrelevant. The Ron Paul
Right, headed by Bill Buckley the LP was able (1) to develop Presidential campaign of 1988
and National Review. That libertarianism as a self-con- was a last, desperate attempt
New Right, while in early days scious creed separate and to transform the Libertarian
paying lip service to the forms distinct from Buckleyite con- Party into a real-world, 'real
of the Old Right, transformed servatism and a fortiori from people" organization, into a
it within a few years into a the increasingly statist, pro- party that middle-class and
global-crusading, war-mon- civil rights, and neo-con working-class people could
gering, and basically pro-state dominated Right of the late feel at home in. The effort was ,
movement. Unfortunately, 1970s and after; (2) the LP a noble one that failed; the
many libertarians were at that was able to educate its own numbers simply weren't there,
time sucked in to became ap- members and develop a prin- and when this failure became
pendages to this statist revo- cipled 'cadre," and (3), as the evident, the 'real world," or
January1992 11
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