I love the small resurgence in libertarianism that is surging through the U.S. in the form of renewed interest in causes such as the Ron Paul movement within the Republican party, the Libertarian party, the Tea Party, and also the Free State Project. This is great, and I hope it works out well.  I tip my hat to this movement and support it where I can.

However, I want to provide a reality check here.  Consider and compare these numbers:

• Bob Barr (latest Libertarian Party candidate)  in 2008 Presidential Election: 523,686 votes – 0.4% of the vote

• Ron Paul in the Republican Primaries: 1,160,403

• The Socialist Party’s votes  in the 1912 Presidential Election: 901,551 votes – 6% of the popular vote

That’s right, there were about as voters for the Socialist Party of America in 1912 as were are Republicans in 2008 who supported Ron Paul. And from 1900-1932, the Socialist Party of America NEVER took a proportion of the presidential race equal or lower to that of the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr in 2008. In fact, Bob Barr has took under 1/12 of the proportion that the Socialist candidate took in 1912.

Don’t want to be a pessimist or anything, but I found this interesting. The Socialists Party of America had 6% of the country. The Libertarians rarely have gotten over 0.5% of the popular vote. Until they reach at least 3% of the popular vote (which is still half of what the Social Party of America attained to in 1912), the U.S. Libertarian Party should probably stop patting themselves on the back and recognize that they are still a very marginal party.

What explains this? No doubt the U.S. is more of a “two party” country now, with probably more things in place to marginalize “third parties”. But still, one would think the Libertarians could at least attain to the sort of popularity that the Socialists attained to 1912. After all, one would think America was not very Socialist-friendly in 1912. But perhaps there was more sympathy for Leftist ideas in America in the early 1900′s than a Gen-X-er might suppose.

So, I’m left wondering, what is a “harder sell”: Libertarianism in 2009 or Socialism in 1912?

“There is a serious lack of concern for individual rights today. The concept of rights has been distorted to such a degree that the authors of the Constitution would not recognize what is today referred to as a “right.” Demands for unearned wealth, based on needs and desires, are now casually accepted as rights… Rights, as understood by the authors of the Constitution, are not an issue of current debate. Rights today are seen as collective and not something individual…groups are now thought to have rights, rather than individuals. The twentieth century has been characterized by the diminishing importance of the individual and the rising importance of the collective…It is commonplace for politicians and those desiring special privileges to refer to: black rights, Hispanic rights, handicap rights, employee rights, student rights, minority rights, women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights, Asian-American rights, Jewish rights, AIDS victims’ rights, poverty rights, homeless rights, etc. Until all these terms are dropped and we recognize that only an individual has rights, the solution to the mess in which we find ourselves will not be found. The longer we lack a definition of rights, the worse economic and social problems will become.

…No longer are rights individual but they are based on demands, needs, and greed…When Lee Iaccoca came before the House Banking Committee on which I sat, he made the “right” of Chrysler workers to keep their jobs the issue, not government largesse for a failing corporation. He explained in his autobiography that the issue had to be workers’ needs or he could not obtain the bailout. Since the concept of rights is currently so inexact, he had no difficulty convincing the Congress. The rights of the small businessman who had his credit “stolen” and was forced into bankruptcy due to the Chrysler bailout was not easily identified and thus ignored.

Careless disregard for liberty allows politicians to promise anything in order to be reelected. Inevitably this leads to a steady increase in spending, forcing higher taxes, more borrowing, and inflation of the money supply.  Government by majority rule has replaced strict protection of the individual from government abuse. Right of property ownership has been replaced with the forced redistribution of wealth and property, without concern for the individual producing the wealth…The individual, throughout this century, has suffered greatly from this dramatic change in attitude. The individual who dares to demand to be left alone and to assume responsibility for himself becomes a criminal. Amish farmers have been arrested for not paying social security taxes, though they sought no aid from the government. Any independence from government welfare programs is deeply frowned upon. Those failing to keep financial records for the IRS are promptly imprisoned.

The good of “society” has replaced the notion that the individual has a sacred right to live unmolested by government interference……Until it’s respectable once again to champion individual rights and government, we cannot expect to reverse the trend in which we as Americans find ourselves.    With confusion regarding rights, the end of constitutionally protected liberty cannot be far off.  Society is filled with competing interests demanding their “rights.” Since no serious attempt has been made to define rights and limit government’s power to masquerade as economic equality in equal rights, the confusion gets worse every year.  This is a serious flaw in today’s political philosophy and, unless the nature of the problem is identified, freedom in America cannot survive. A lack of a precise standards for describing individual rights will destroy the American way of life”

Ron Paul in Freedom Under Siege, 1988

“the act of voting utterly fails to pledge any one to support the government. It utterly fails to prove that the government rests upon the voluntary support of anybody. On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that the government has any voluntary supporters at all, until it can be distinctly shown who its voluntary supporters are.”

– Lysander Spooner (in No Treason)

“A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years”

–Lysander Spooner (in No Treason)