Redstate

A good man, who was unafraid to fight many a good fight.

He will be missed.

I admire what you fought for.

... has lost one of the few shreds of Sanity left.

My hat off to you Mr. Browne.

I especially like his persistent criticism of the War in Iraq:

"And yet, here we are four years later, tens of thousands of people have died, and still not all the criminals have been caught regardless. Osama Bin Laden not only hasn't been apprehended, he isn't even talked about anymore . . .

There is no War on Terrorism. There is only a War on Strawmen, a War on Shadows, a War on Fantasies -- allowing George Bush to do whatever he, or his advisors, choose to do.

It is time to quit pretending that the War in Iraq serves any purpose relating to world peace, democracy in the Middle East, the first line against terrorism, or any other salutary goal.

It is simply part of the War on Strawmen."

Indeed.

It's that insanity that caused me to stop calling myself a libertarian, stop considering leaving the Republican party, and start up the trail of reading that led me today to call myself a conservative.

I've been eligible to vote in three Presidential elections, and he got one of my three votes.

I'm sure he'd have made a great peacetime President.

in 1996.  No better time to do it.

A concise statement on why the Libertarians are doomed to a 2% showing in the polls. Thanks for bringing that to us.

I dont want to say bad things about the recently departed, but in some ways he proved something that I have always thought.  There were some minor corruption things inside his campaigns, proving that no matter who you elect, they will be corrupt.

Im an LP member, I fully expect if we managed to win the presidency, his administration would have many of the same corruption problems the Rs and Ds do.  I would just put up with it to pull us in the right direction.

Anyway, RIP Harry.  

While I've long considered myself a small "l" libertarian, Browne's 1996 presidential campaign which can be summed up as "government doesn't work, buy my book" demonstrated to me that there are those who just care about griping about problems rather than come up with workable solutions to fix them.

I have a lot of problems with the GOP leadership for their failure to make government smaller in any meaningful way but I also see that there great potential within it for enacting the sort of reforms in areas like health care, education, entitlement programs, etc. that empower the individual and ultimately make the Nanny State unpalatable.

Also, as others have pointed out, there is a lack of seriousness amongst the LP when it comes to foreign policy and immigration which IMO stems from a mindset that assumes that all government - even when acting within its proper, constitutional sphere - is automatically bad rather than acknowledging that government does have a proper role in some areas but it always needs to be rationally scrutinized and there is always room for improvement.

Hence I remain a Republican and thank Harry Browne for his reminder as to why.

... to many Harry Browne discussions, this statement:

...that assumes that all government - even when acting within its proper, constitutional sphere - is automatically bad rather than acknowledging that government does have a proper role in some areas...

... is patently false. Libertarians and libertarians all believe there is a very valuable role for government and there are functions it is designed to perform far better than the free market could. Harry Browne frequently discussed what he thought the government should be working on in his online TV show he's put on the past couple of years.

The same "unworkable" problems in a pure libertarian view on government exist in a pure Republican (however that can be defined these days... I don't know) or Democrat (I also no longer know how to define that properly).

Any party is going to be unworkable if it is left entirely on its own, unless it is among a homogonous group (such as the Scandanavian nations) or enforced at gunpoint.

The way the Libertarian party has come out against national defense since 9/11/2001, makes me doubt the party's willingness to support ANY legitimate purpose of government.

... not sure what the official Libertarian party attitude towards national defense has been since that point.

I do know that I've never heard anything except them saying we should actually focus on defense instead of offense. But also do it without giving in to the knee jerk overreaction that results in diminishment of privacy and rights.

All of Harry Browne's comments on his TV show were constantly talking about the Federal Government's ability to focus on defense. It may be a form you disagree with, but they've never said there isn't a place for government, nor a role.

Otherwise they would just be more easily labelled as anarchists, which they are not though they do come off that way to people who've only ever known Republican or Democrat ideas for the last 30 years.