Topic: Libertarianism
A NeoCon Strategy for Libertarians
Libertarians took the high road in 1971, built Think Tanks, made magazines, and found zero success. What ideologically small group has had amazing success? NeoCons. Both on the Left and Right. Like any good business, we must adjust and adapt. We don't need to buy their product, just adapt their successful strategy, and make it our own. Now just what would that look like? Lets see..
by Treg
(libertarian)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Libertarians took the high road in 1971, built a new Party from scratch, built up new Think Tanks, wrote new made magazines, and other than finding ourselves, we found zero political success.
So what ideologically small group has had amazing success? Answer: NeoCons. Both on the Left and Right and over the decades! NeoCons are the ultimate Statists. We are the ultimate anti-Statists. But like any good business, we must learn, adjust and adapt. We don't need to buy their NeoCon product, just adapt their successful strategy, and make it our own. Now just what would that look like? Lets see..
Lets LEARN the 2 PARTY stategy like the NeoCons; Copy them? Hell YES!
NeoCons have Think Tanks on the Left---
NeoCons have Think Tanks on the Right.
They intentionally have one consistent theme-- PRO-Imperialism, Pro-Military Expansion, Pro-War, Pro-State. They intentionally pay lip service to their conservative or liberal base, selling those goals out each and every time.
Here is how it works:
NeoCons have Think Tanks on the Left--------
That means employment for young and old NeoCon Radicals. It means when the Democrats get in Power, you may get sucked up into the new administration, some State Dept level jobs, get some security clearances, work for Home Land Security, work for various companies inside the military industrial complex, and even get some Main Stream Media "consultant, pundit, commentator" job that "explains and encourages" the new president's policies. Always give weak lip service to the rest of the liberal democratic program, but ALWAYS push for the NeoCon agenda. Go to work in liberal NeoCon magazines. Write books and use liberal publishers. Suck up all the liberal monies and political efforts, but channel it all to go through the NeoCon agenda. Pro-Choice? Great, help us and we'll help you (not). Though the number of ideological NeoCons is LOWER than the number of ideological Libertarians, high profile employment is guaranteed because they have wedded themselves to government agencies, MSM, Liberal Think Tanks, etc. Its a revolving job door that pushes the narrow NeoCon goal. It works. We should take notes!
NeoCons have Think Tanks on the Right.--------
That means employment for young and old NeoCon Radicals. It means when the Republicans get in Power, you may get sucked up into the new administration, some State Dept level jobs, get some security clearances, work for Home Land Security, work for various companies inside the military industrial complex, and even get some Main Stream Media "consultant, pundit, commentator" job that "explains and encourages" the new president's policies. Always give weak lip service to the rest of the conservative republican program, but ALWAYS push for the NeoCon agenda. Go to work in Conservative NeoCon magazines. Write books and use Conservative publishers. Suck up all the Conservative monies and political efforts, but channel it all to go through the NeoCon agenda. Pro-Life? Great, help us and we'll help you (not). Though the number of ideological NeoCons is LOWER than the number of ideological Libertarians, high profile employment is guaranteed because they have wedded themselves to government agencies, MSM, Conservative Think Tanks, etc. Its a revolving job door that pushes the narrow NeoCon goal. It works. We should take notes!
Yes, we Libertarians should take note.
But what could be or would be the key, the KEYSTONE issue that unites Libertarians found on the Left and Libertarians found on the Right? How would we be able to give that NeoCon "wink & nod" that we found our mutual Libertarian brother across the political divide, and we don't shoot him/her down for their so-called Liberal or Conservative beliefs? Notice that NeoCons on the Left never, NEVER gang piled and attacked their fellow NeoCons on the Right? Well if you missed it these past 8 years, what as the Weekly Standard sits back and is apologetic and protective for the war hawks on the Left.
In business, you copy what works. You must adapt quickly and survive.
In Politics, political ideologies, to be implemented, must adapt to what works quickly and survive.
Libertarians took the noble road in 1971, built up a party, built up Think Tanks, built up Magazines, and stayed 100% out of government employment and the military industrial complex. Indeed, some libertarians work inside of government and the military industrial complex and feel DEEPLY guilty about it.
But they should not feel guilty. They should feel like heroic insiders, like virus inside the system. Viruses are often inert, until the "right time comes".
We Libertarians already have Magazines and Think Tanks.
We need to consciously build them and place them squarely on the Left and on the Right.
That means, we need a CATO on the Right.
That means, we need a CATO on the Left.
That also means, we need to change the names.
But before we do that, we must answer the Key Question. What would tie us together? "But what could be or would be the key, the KEYSTONE issue that unites Libertarians found on both the Left and Libertarians found on the Right?"
ANSWER: The Constitution itself.
We can look at the Constitution as the "default" or reset position.
Left Libertarians can pick out "lefty" type concerns and push for the Constitution there. That means they can champion Public Schools and in the same breath champion the Constitution. Then sell out the lefty Public School agenda in the end, pushing for the lefty Constitution that sees not Public Schools mentioned.
Right Libertarians can pick out "righty" type concerns and push for the Constitution there. That means they can champion anti-Gay Marriage and in the same breath champion the Constitution. Then sell out the lefty anti-gay agenda in the end, pushing for the righty Constitution that see no Federal Government involved in Marriage, gay or otherwise.
While both Right & Left Libertarians center of focus is the Constitution and always come together on the Constitution, they NEVER EVER take up the NeoCon side of Pro-War, Pro-Imperialist interventionism.
It will not be long before the ideological NeoCons "See" the Libertarians for what they truly are. Just like we now can "See" NeoCons for what they are, regardless of the D or R by their name.
The BATTLE will be there. Statists vs Anti-Statists. And it will be glorious. The NeoCon Statists have been winning by sitting high up on the massive public Camel on the Left, and the massive public camel on the Right. Each rider whips the public beast under him with his Statist philosophy and pragmatic arguments, leaving the beast to fear the other large beast to the Right or the one to the Left. The simple minded public beast is fearful of the other large beast. Each is amazed they are always going in the same direction no matter who is in the lead. To date the NeoCons of the Left and Right have guided and whipped their camels to walk in the Statist direction again and again. Now what happens when the Libertarian Left jumps up on that camel? What happens when the Libertarian Right jumps up on that camel? Suddenly the war begins and the camels stop moving. They will wait the outcome of the war above. Statists vs Anti-Statists. It will be glorious.
The question is, do we have the stomach for it? Do we have the intestinal fortitude, the duplicity and yet the single minded purposefulness to go "underground" and "infiltrate" the political apparatus of the two party system and the military industrial complex? Do we have the talent to build ourselves a revolving job door on both the Left and Right? Do we have the desire to win, take on the our enemies head-on?
I do.
Do you?
In Peace & Liberty,
Treg
©2008 Treg, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Friday, November 7, 2008
Last modified: Friday, November 7, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Treg only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Treg is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: Spence
Date: 2008-11-07 13:26:57
Fuck you. Libertarians are the purest breed. I spit on you and your ideas of how to actually effectively spread liberty.
/Jk
In all seriousness, this will be the common reply you will get from these idiotic "radicals" and conservative reformers.
Posted By: Treg
Date: 2008-11-07 17:25:31
For a visual, lets add to the Nolan Chart above. If we were to place NeoCon's of the Left & Right, I submit they do not drop down to the bottom point. I think we should draw a larger circle around the intersection point of Statists/Liberal/Centrist on the one side, and Statist/Conservative/Centrist on the other. So unlike the Pure libertarians at the top position, the Statist NeoCons do not drop down to the bottom point of the Nolan Chart above, but find TRACTION by splitting Left and Right. It is there that they have found success moving the body politic in the Statist direction. Perhaps we too can find TRACTION by spliting and positioning ourselves at the opposite top corners of the Centrist Box. Like the NeoCons, we could always sell out the Centrist/Liberal/Conservative position, always opting for (in our case) Liberty.
Posted By: Treg
Date: 2008-11-07 17:32:23
If someone is good at graphics, could you add to the Nolan Chart the 4 circles that I describe above and label the bottom corners of the Centrist box, NeoCon Left and NeoCon Right, and the top corners of the Centrist Box as Libertarian Left, Libertarian Right. That way, we would all be free to look at it and comment upon it. It just may be the way to get political traction and of course, political success for Liberty. Thanks for listening
Posted By: Kevin Tuma
Date: 2008-11-07 17:49:51
It has possibilities. A two-headed approach risks nothing, potentially gains a lot, and confuses the opposition.
Posted By: Chris Baker
Date: 2008-11-07 20:28:23
It's a fact that the libertarian movement has been a colossal failure. One reason is that libertarians are far too honest. They also make the mistake of trying to reason with voters. Barack Obama demonstrated for all of us that you win by appealing to emotion.
This could actually work quite well.
Posted By: Spence
Date: 2008-11-07 21:33:07
Perhaps something like that is what you had in mind?
!["Image]("http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/1013/nolanchart1copyry8.png")
Posted By: Spence
Date: 2008-11-07 21:33:56
* http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/1013/nolanchart1copyry8.png
Posted By: Treg
Date: 2008-11-08 15:03:29
Spence, yes thanks for that image.
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/1013/nolanchart1copyry8.png
Four circles around the four Centrist Corners. The circles can be much bigger. The u shape and the upside down u shape, I will not address yet, at least for now.
Now lets look at the Ron Paul Revolution. The Ron Paul Revolution can be looked at as being or existing inside the top Right circle.
Now we can also look at the ACLU, American Freedom Campaign Naomi Wolf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI, Glenn Greenwald, Denis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel etc as all being in the top Left circle.
We can further place people like Naomi klein' Shock Doctrine', Madeline Albright, Zbigniew Brzesinksi http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard, and many others as NeoCons of the bottom LEFT
We can further place NeoCons like Norman Podhoretz, Bill Kristol, Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, etc all as being on the bottom Right
Now lets ask ourselves, why would we WANT to do this? Because within our Nolan chart we will have placed ideological centerpoints, or focalpoints, or in physics - attractors. We could of course just go to wikipedia and read all there is on NeoCons and their Statist goals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism But it is much clearer to graphically represent the political landscape.
Now notice, for lofty libertarians, its a clear step down and to the Right to join in the Ron Paul Revolution. Some of us libertarians could do it, some of us could not. For example I know of a libertarian pro-choice, gay latina girl who could not. So it can be said that Ron Paul cast a wider circle, hence crafted together a wider more popular revolution, but it was not a pure libertarian net. For Ron Paul, like all politicians, they want to cast the biggest net they can and still be able to justify it to themselves. Ron cast a wide net. He had been doing it for years. Through his associations with the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, the John Birtch Society, the Gold Bugs, the Gun Champions, the Pro Life cause, the illegal alien crowd, the anti-war crowd, the anti-corporate welfare, anti-NATO, Anti-NAU, anti-NAFTA, anti-CAFTA, Anti-WTO, Anti-UN., home schoolers,..etc., Ron amassed a following. If you were a member of a Ron Paul meetup, you were often shocked at all the strange beliefs around you. But Freedom was the Message, and it set the directional long term goal in which all could agree. A revolution was born, or rather, a ideological focal point was rediscovered.
Denis Kucinich and Mike Gravel could have, but did not cast as wide a net as they SHOULD have. They could have rallied in all the anti-corporation people, the ACLU types, the Anti-war, the NORML types, the pro-immigration types, the anti-WTO types, vegan-vitamin nuts, etc. Nader showed that it is a focal point, again attracting many 3rd party votes, better than the Greens or the Libertarians or the write-in Ron Paul camps.
Now let me address the U shape and the upside down U shape. Both the top right and top Left ideolgical focal points must move towards eachother in order to gain numbers, that is gain the most voters to win an election. The same is true for the Statist below. That is why the U shape dips down into the Centrist box and across to the other side. The politician with the best "likeability factor" and who can pull that off, will find victory at the voting booth.
The "Likeability Factor" is certainly more and more important for the politician as he moves from City Council to State Governor to State Senator to US President. Indeed, it was this quality that Obama had and road to the White House. He campaigned in the primaries "just Left" of Hillary and the others in the race, and played up his Likeability Factor" as much as possible. As soon as he won the Primary from Hillary, he moved Right (voted for FISA). As President we can all expect him to move further Right, to the CENTRIST CENTER.
Now, just where is that Centrist Box MOVING in time? That is, is it moving at glacial pace UP to the Libertarian top? Or is it moving down to the Statist Bottom? Answer: Things will stay the same, the fundemental direction will stay the same, towards the Statist Bottom.
To turn things around, the two top Ideological Centers must be widened and reach down and across. As long as "political solutions" are sought that come from that top side of the U, the whole country moves in that direction. But as long as "political solutions" come from the bottom side, such as a one world currency rather than say, Free Market Money, then the country moves in that direction. Therefore, notice it behooves us all to make sure that the Top LEFT does well, and the Top Right does well. It also means that when recuiting our political champions, we can really get thousands of extra bonus points by making sure we are looking for and training for that all important, "Likeability Factor". In sales we often split the sales into 3 sales guys. The friendly Let me show you the car guy, is person who does not intimitate or bother you in any way. The "numbers guy" provides believability and trust, and the last guy you see is the guy who "closes" the deal. That guy is all full of the "Likeability Factor". You buy the car from him. Indeed, you may have forgot the first guy who showed you the car when you test drove it. You may have forgot the upsetting numbers guy. But you remember fondly the last guy, the Closer.
A good "Political Staff" will have all three inside his campaign.
Posted By: Treg
Date: 2008-11-08 17:48:00
This is not a Trojan Horse Strategy. No.
What I am saying that there is a huge Ideological Focal Point at those 4 points.
Right now we "see" the Nolan chart from directly above, looking straight down on it as a sheet, flat on our beds.
But imagine the Nolan chart in a New Way. First imagine that at each circle is really a very heavy shot-put ball weighing 50 pounds...(to barrow a bit from Einstein) . .....and now imagine if we lift the Nolan Chart SHEET up to our eye level, looking at it with a HORIZON in the background and a foreground in front near our eyes, the "flat" Nolan chart sheet is not so "flat". What I submit is that at the 4 attractor points are in fact 4 ideological weights, and these weights represent the most power or ideological pull. Yes there are other ideological pulls or weights. Indeed, we can and should imagine 4 additional 10 lb weights or balls, one at each end point, the top Libertarian point, the bottom Statist point, the Left Liberal Point, the Right Conservative point.
So, the NOLAN chart sheet is not flat....instead the sheet is very much dented. There are 8 heavy areas, with the lighter 4 weights on the outside extremes at 10 pounds and the heavier 50 pound weights at the four corners of the Centrist Box.
If anyone is good at graphics, please post a model of this up for us all to see. Spence? You out there?
Now we can see several things. We can see overall tilt. We can say that the overall angle and tilt of the entire sheet rolls down, to the 10 pound Centrist Ball. Like a see-saw, the Libertarian 10 pound ball is higher up on the see-saw. We can also see that the majority of space created (or voters) is to be found inside the Centrist Box.
And not to beat a dead horse, but what is it that these Centrist Voters base their voting decision upon?
Answer: Likability. For them, its all about Personality. The rest is just garnish on the dish, and they rarely or look at the garnish very much. Yet we are all about the garnish, the political dressing that comes with the Candidate. They could care less, they "vote the man", not the ideology.
Further notice that it becomes VERY important that the two top 50 pound weights HELP each other over come the see-saw tilt provided by the two 50 pound weights at the Statist end. Notice that the two Left and Right NeoCon sides do not fight, but HELP each other inside each party. Indeed, they must, because if you ask me, I think there are less ideological Left-Right NeoCon Statists...that is with real deep intellectual ammunition, then there are Left-Right Libertarian intellectuals. That's right, we have more bullets, more arguments, better guns. Yet they have the strategy and work across the false party lines.
Think about it.
In Peace & Liberty,
Treg