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 They say, "There's only two choices" but always fail to articulate the role they play in creating that environment:

  Via C-SPAN .

 When it comes to making substantial political change, you need numbers. Anyone who is frustrated with the status quo and wishes to change it should understand this, and many do. The question is: "How to get those numbers?" What is the best way to get enough people to rally against the system? At one point, it seemed that most of the American Left was divided into two factions: Reformists and (more radical) Revolutionaries. The former basically believes in working with and/or in the system in order to change it, where the latter prefers a more outsider, non-electoral politics approach. Of course, there's room for hybrids (i.e., ignore national politics and focus on the local). Currently, the best way to discern between the two is by what you see on cable news or in the halls of government: if they are on TV or radio denouncing the status quo, odds are they are reformists; anyone going the extra step of including the current two major parties in their critique are rarely h...

 There is a "Wage Against the War Machine" Rally coming to Washington, DC on Sunday, 2/19/23. There's a website with all the relevant information .  There has been some...pushback because it appears that the "left" and the "right" are "uniting" behind this event. People more astute than myself have made cases for and against participating.  Not really going to touch this argument on the merits; people of various political beliefs can be anti-war and if they choose to join under that particular banner and such joining can bare fruit, than fine.  My hesitation to either commend or condemn the event wholesale is due to a few factors: The "left" isn't unified itself on enough issues . Whether it's those who are more socialist who disagree with the social democrats on FTV, the railroad strike debacle or funding Ukraine or those who lean more Marx versus those who lean more Trotsky, the left hasn't come to much of a consensus...

 A majority of American voters want a party that's neither Democrats nor Republican, and the duopoly has taken notice.  The tactic has long been to ignore their existence (having influence/control of the media helps) but polls cannot be denied forever. The next-most-beloved tactic is a combination of infiltration, acquisition, and outsourcing. While the country has have third-parties for a while (see Green Party and Libertarian Party) two newer parties have entered the scene: [Movement for a] People's Party and the Forward Party. Like the Green Party and Libertarian Party, the two new parties are not perfect alternatives to the duopoly at the moment.  The People's Party was born out of disappointment with Bernie Sander's two failed presidential campaigns, and is headed by Nick Brana. While there is enthusiasm for the young party, they have no candidates and their only consistent spokesperson is Brana, which is... problematic .   The Forward Party is identified a...

If you haven't listened to this whole exchange, please do so. This is what passes for philosophy on the far right these days. Sam is correct: There is not a single example of free-market libertarianism anywhere in the history of man -- or anything even remotely approaching it -- because the libertarian utopia fall flat on (at least) two fundamental questions: 1) How does a libertarian society protect itself from invasion from an external force? And 2) How does a libertarian society protect itself from the over-consumption of natural resources? On the second question, I have moral dilemma that I pose to my libertarian friends that NONE have been able to answer yet without admitting that some form of "governmental coercion" is necessary. It goes like this: In a large bay shared by thousands of families, there is a long tradition of oyster fishermen stretching back for generations. The people around the bay love oysters, and so the oyster fishermen ...

While not completely true, it sure does seem to apply to a majority of politically-minded libertarians .

The only difference between a libertarian and an anarchist, is that the former has a mortgage, so they want a government to protect their particular driveway from everybody else. --" Mr. E ," commenting on this TPM post .

The conservatives in America have could teach a class on how to use factions for political gain. Whether you're talking about baiting bigots and racists, schmoozing with God-fearing Christians or pandering to Friedman-ordained Wall Street types, the American Conservative has been able to pull off spectacular, if temporary, alliances. The Tea Party phenomenon is just the latest in a long line of attempts to re-brand and re-tool the conservative element within the GOP. But while this has been going on, there's been another interesting development: the potential fracturing between conservatives and libertarians, as evidenced by Ron Paul's one vote loss to Mitt Romney in the last Conservative Something Something Convention . But more to the point, there's been recent comments by noted "voices" of conservatives dismissing the previous Conservative Something Something Convention as being too libertarian . It seems strange that this is the stance being taken. The GO...

'Nuff said. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Intro - Progressivism Is Cancer www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform And can't forget this part: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Conservative Libertarian www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Michelle Bachmann vs. Ron Paul ? She never had a chance.