However, let me turn the argument around. In a coalition 2-party system there will never be a major party candidate that is not more statist than libertarians would prefer. Even Ronald Reagan, IMO the most libertarian-friendly president of modern times, did some abhorrent things (think War on Drugs).

My point is that your argument will always be true. Imagine that Bob Barr captures 5% of the vote this year and the GOP loses – the next year they see the light and nominate a candidate slightly more libertarian leaning than McCain (I know this is a pretty low bar), will LP voters then return their votes to the GOP? Following your argument probably not, so the GOP would have every incentive to write off the libertarian vote and simply move more left to capture a sufficient majority.

I believe the time to fight is during the primaries, as organizations such as the not very effective RLC and more effective Club for Growth do, by strongly supporting the most libertarian of the GOP candidates. Then, in the general election, support whichever major party candidate is, in balance, a bigger friend to liberty.

All that said, although I believe Obama would be far worse in expanding the reach of the state, I still haven’t decided whether I can hold my nose and vote for the authoritarian McCain.

Bush may suck for keeping his veto pen up his ass and creating massive new programs BUT this problem is one of the few government created problems that breaks heavily to one party.

The headline is “Cheaper housing push not to blame.”

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-Fannie_13bus.State.Edition1.ddae60.html

Interesting read.

Every dollar of the $700bln bailout package will go to buy securities that were structured, purchased, and rated by private profit-seeking entities and were comprised of loans that lenders thought they would be making a profit on. If the GSEs weren’t willing to lend or guarantee the conforming stuff, the private sector would have filled the void (as these are much less risky than the non-conforming crap they actually did write).

I’m not defending Fannie and Freddie, maybe they should never have existed and maybe there should have been more oversight, but the vast majority of the current crisis resulted from very poor decisions being made by private entities in the pursuit of profit, not because they were forced to by the government.

Also, consider that risk-based pricingpossibly created an incentive for mortgage brokers to sell high-interest (“sub-prime”) loans to folks who could have qualified for a better deal (i.e., better interest rate). And don’t forget that a “sub-prime” loan, one that carries high risk of the borrower defaulting, could be made to anyone in any income bracket and of any race.

If the Democrats blew it all up with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, they used one hell of a long fuse.

Agreed. The 1977 CRA was originally not enforced unless a community group pushed the issue. It was, and still is, limited to FDIC-insured depository institutions, as its original intent was to ensure that banks were making loans in the same zip codes from which they were also taking deposits.

American political rules mean that, of necessity, the big parties are coalitions, the best we can hope for is to nudge them continuously in a direction more favorable to liberty. In my opinion, the better party to nudge is the GOP.

That’s exactly what I am talking about. You think the GOP is the party to nudge, so let me be clear: You will never nudge the GOP toward a more libertarian platform as long as they think they will get your vote even when they ignore you. I don’t know how to make that more clear. If you want a more libertarian-leaning GOP, you absolutely cannot give the GOP your vote when they are statist. Every vote for statist GOP is telling the party that, during the next election, they can ignore libertarian concerns because they get those votes anyway. The next time they propose a huge welfare expansion like the prescription drug benefit, keep in mind that they only did that because they’ve learned it doesn’t cost them any votes.

It’s your choice, but there is no getting around the fact that voting for a statist, pro-big-government candidate tells the party that they can count on your vote next time with the same sort of candidate. And, if you allow yourself to be co-opted by the “we know you want a pro-freedom candidate, but vote for this dweeb because this election is too important to lose” line, then you will never get what you want because there will never be an election where that argument isn’t used.

(I’m also sorry for veering off the “which party is was worse on mortgages” discussion, but the overlap between these issues is inevitable.)

Anyone know what percentage of the failing subprime mortgages were issued by entities regulated by the CRA?

I dunno. Maybe it really is lamppost-and-tumbrel time. Anyone have a less drastic suggestion for how to get our betters to take their responsibilities seriously?

Today, I dislike Bush & Co. to a greater degree than the other half simply because they repeatedly lie when they attempt to paint themselves as significantly more fiscally conservative than the other half.

It’s also disappointing that in a speech designed to gain applause for the theft of millions of tax dollars from responsible citizens, the Thief Executive also tries to drum up support for his disastrous and expensive imperial foriegn policy.

From the same speech…

See, I tell people — and I believe this — that out of the evil done to America will come some incredible good. (Applause.) You know, they thought they were attacking a country so weak and so feeble that we might file a lawsuit or two, and that’s all we’d do. (Laughter.) That’s what they thought. We’re showing them the different face of America. We’re showing them that we’re plenty tough. When it comes to taking somebody trying to take away our freedoms, we’re tough, and we’re going to remain tough and steadfast. (Applause.)

Yup, to the missing village idiot from Crawford TX, the PATRIOT act is “incredible good.”

You tell ‘um W, when it comes to taking away freedom, be it money or basic rights, NOBODY but the U.S. Government’s gonna do that on your watch!

Heads they win, Tails we lose… Happy Voting!

and here’s Clintons HUD secretary glorying in forcing banks to make bad loans – http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/12/the-quotes-that-explain-the-entire-financial-meltdown/

the whole time Bush was in office he had at best a slim majority in Congress, not enough to re-form Fannie and Freddie or anything else.

there is LOTS to complain about Bush, but anybody who thinks Dodd and the other criminals who prevented the Bush administration and McCains bill in 2005 from getting to the floor of the Senate are going to change their ways under Obama is dreaming. already the Dems are talking about another wave of “stimulus”. guess what, all of it is going to be paid for on the backs of people who WORK, and all largess will go to organizations like ACORN. that’ll help a lot, won’t it.

Maybe, but I don’t see how it was flippers effecting the world wide economy more than the securities traders. Didn’t someone refer to credit default swaps as “financial weapons of mass destruction”?

I could be wrong, but I feel Administration was inflating the economy for short term gain to help fund the war, knowing that when the crash came they would bail out their friends.

I’ve been involved in libertarian politics since the MacBride campaign, what you’re posing is an excellent position, and indeed what I have advocated myself for many years.

However, after nearly 4 decades of electoral disappointment, it is clear to me that there is simply not enough support among the public to make a third party based on libertarian principles viable.

I’ve heard numbers of 10% possible support, in a proportional representation system as is common in Europe, the LP could have a significant role in national politics. However, in the winner take all system of American politics, diverting 10% of the votes from the candidate that supports slightly less government simply ensures that the candidate that supports more government will win.

American political rules mean that, of necessity, the big parties are coalitions, the best we can hope for is to nudge them continuously in a direction more favorable to liberty. In my opinion, the better party to nudge is the GOP. The Democrats are firmly wedded to the idea of big government and state control of nearly everything, while the bad Republican cultural tendencies (drug enforcement, morality laws) will diminish over time as the culture changes.

I admit, this election makes support for the GOP particularly difficult, McCain offers most of the bad things about Republicans and few of the good, but I’m afraid of what will happen if both Congress and the Presidency are controlled by the D’s

Radley, sorry to hijack this threat about home mortgages.

Otherwise, politicians of either party seem perfectly happy to fall into the Washington rut of trying to pretend they have the solution to everything, and they just assume that the people who care about freedom and Constitutional government will vote for them anyway because “the other guy is worse”. Well, when the two parties put forth candidates who are awful (as is currently the case), then giving your vote to the “less worse” one only teaches the parties that awful is good enough to win, which is all they care about.

You’ll never get a candidate who is really pro-freedom if you are always willing to compromise and vote for a big-government statist. For conservative-leaning libertarians (as I assume a couple people in this thread are), think about it as similar to welfare: You don’t teach someone to go out and do productive work when you send him a check for doing nothing.

Both parties have contributed to the current mess, but for the last eight years only one of them has had the real power to act and soften the financial crisis. They choose to ignore it, and at points simply blame the problem on people no longer in power.

The events of the past 2 weeks aren’t a new result. It’s a natural step in the process of lending money to borrowers who don’t (and never did) have the means to repay the loan. People earning $20K/year who bought 4 houses in hopes of “flipping” them have far more to do with the problem than funding some more wars.