Principle Failure
Sam Aurelius Milam III
I was a libertarian long before the Libertarian Party began, and joined it shortly after its formation.  In those early days, we didn't care if our candidates were elected to office.  Our goal was to educate people.  We knew that as we succeeded, and our ideas gained in popularity, they'd be pirated by the major parties.  However, we didn't care if the other parties got credit for our ideas, just so long as it was our ideas that solved the problems.  We were the party of principle.
Gradually, the Libertarian Party lost its purity of principle.  Libertarians began to apologize for their principles and lose sight of their original goals.  Expediency began to supersede principle.  I saw many examples over the years, and complained about some of them.  The most recent example to come to my attention appeared in the article Toward A Libertarian World,¹ by Mark Hinkle.
Mr. Hinkle began his article, "As always, I'll begin by restating our primary goals for 1998 ...  1.  Build our ranks to 7,000 dues paying members;  2.  Build our pledge program to generate $6,000 per month;  3.  Maintain ballot status."  Mr. Hinkle has enumerated some of the necessary mechanics of running a party but inappropriately elevated them to the status of party goals.  Libertarian goals should be things like trying to abolish mandatory drug testing, disarm the SWAT teams, or oppose the escalating national ID system.  Raising money and boosting membership are appropriate support functions, but they are not "primary goals".  This failure to understand the difference between logistics and objectives is a good example of why the Libertarian Party continues to be such a failure at solving the problems it was originally intended to address.

Letters to the Editor
Dear Sam
Perhaps there is a loss of wealth in lending.  But in a society lacking other safeguards against homelessness for those down on the dough, to make shutting the banks an absolute, neglects concern for human welfare.  If one accepts banking as a necessary, perhaps temporary evil, it is preferable that the government do it, as an (at least for now) needed service, rather than having private parasites use it to squeeze personal profit out of the needs of others, perhaps, as you say, at a net loss to everyone.
Aristotle defined form of government according to number of rulers:  one — monarchy;  the few — oligarchy;  the many — democracy.  Plato defined form of government according to which class ruled (implying economic system):  aristocracy — Plato used this term for his ideal State, ruled by intellectuals;  timocracy — military rule (fascism);  oligarchy — rule by the merchants & bankers (bourgeois, middle-class, plutocracy, capitalism);  democracy — rule by the working majority;  tyranny — rule by a tyrant, often a former demagogue under democracy, like Julius Caesar.  Plato's classifications seem to me more useful than Aristotle's & their "scientific" predictive character is demonstrated by the fact that Caesar's (& Hitler's) career could be predicted in the Republic.  Dictatorship & despotism imply tyranny only from the democratic point of view.  The ancients & Voltaire & communism believed in benevolent dictatorship or enlightened despotism — e.g. Pericles, Trajan, Frederick the Great, Lenin.  The idea that representative democracy is not democracy but oligarchy is an illusion, & a confusion of terms.  The Athenians had more plebiscites & referendums than the US does, but they did elect politicians to manage the state on a daily basis.  If the US is an oligarchy, it's because the billionaire merchants control the government behind the scenes.  But I agree with your central idea that what is important is the behavior of the government.  We must struggle to transform the government to serve rather than oppress people.
Sincerely,

Frontiersman  479 E.  700 N.  Firth, Idaho 83236           Crime prevention is more dangerous than crime. Crime is a tool of scoundrels. Crime prevention is a tool of government.

Acknowledgments
•     My thanks to Bob, of Lee's Summit, Missouri, for his contribution.
•     My thanks to my reviewers for their invaluable assistance.
•     My thanks to The Affiliate, of Vankleek Hill, Ontario for regularly printing reviews of the Frontiersman.
•     My thanks to Sir Donald the Elusive for paying the production costs of this newsletter and for his additional contributions.

Funnies For You
Source unknown.  Forwarded by Warren, of Pocatello, Idaho
The Interior Dept. is spending $100,000 to train beagles to sniff out brown tree snakes in Hawaii.  The snakes have destroyed a large number of bird species and cause power outages by crawling on to electrical transformers.  Unfortunately, there aren't any brown tree snakes in Hawaii.  They're in Guam.  (The gov't. is also considering $100,000 for mongooses to keep cobras out of North Dakota.)
During the 1980s, Defense Dept. efficiency experts saved between $27 million and $136 million each year.  However, the efficiency experts work cost between $150 million and $300 million each year.  (...efficiently conning the government!)