Back when I was a child in school, the US was fighting a bad war and engaging in some unconstitutional practices at home, and grassroots organizations rose up to combat these evils, united under the general term of "The New Left".  Existing political parties ignored them until the New Left began collecting sizable crowds and petitions.  Then, of course, the Old Left -- realizing that there were lots of exploitable numbers, and therefore political power, here -- jumped on the New Left bandwagon.  The Democrats came courting for votes, but the Marxists did their best to take over and steer it toward communism.  Both succeeded.  The Marxists thoroughly corrupted the New Left and brought it crashing down, but not before it had transmitted a lot of Marxist ideas into the Democrat party, which then got a lot of its members elected to office -- where they still plague us today.

Now I'm seeing it again.  The Libertarian movement, which has been growing slowly over the last 40 years, collected enough grassroots support to create the Tea Party.  The Tea Party has collected enough numbers and petitions to become a serious threat to the entrenched system, so both the Republican party and the Conservatives have noticed it.  The Republicans have come courting for votes, but the Conservatives are trying to infiltrate the Tea Party and take it over.  If this process isn't checked, the Tea Party will lose its original Libertarian philosophy and go the way of the New Left.

How can this be prevented?  First, we must realize that a false friend is more dangerous than an honest enemy;  much as we're eager to increase our numbers, we have to be selective about who we take in.  We *must* separate ourselves from the Conservatives, who will otherwise be the kiss of death to any Libertarian movement, much as the Marxists were to the New Left.  The way to keep them away from our rallies -- where they come to wave their own signs at the cameras of the gullible media --  is to point to them and shout "Imposter!" or "Provocateur!", likewise where the media's cameras are turned.  Second, we must keep them out of our organizations and publications -- and there's a deceptively easy way to do that. 

One of the obvious differences between Libertarians and Conservatives is the latter's easily-revealed religious, racial, class and -- most visible of all -- sexual bigotry.  One question that will readily reveal this is: "What is your opinion of Gay marriage?"  A Libertarian will either shrug and say people's private lives are nobody else's business, or will get up on the nearest soap-box and preach against the very idea of government-enforced marriage.  A Conservative will either fumble about with thin excuses as to why Gays shouldn't marry, or will stand up at the nearest pulpit and bellow about how Gays are Evil Perverts and an Affront To God And Man.  

There are other questions that can reveal the Conservative beneath the Libertarian disguise, but this is the quickest.  I strongly suggest that we use it. 

I also strongly suggest that we do *not* support any Republican candidate at the upcoming elections, but vote for third-party or independent candidates wherever possible.  Letting ourselves be lured down the garden path by opportunistic Republicans will not change the nature of the present game, but voting outside the standard Big Two parties *will* shake up the system as nothing else has in over a century.

And let's hear no howls of "divisiveness" or "exclusivity".  We must either purge ourselves of the false friends in our ranks now, or go down to defeat as surely as the New Left did.  Learn from history!  We can't afford to repeat it.

--Leslie Fish  <;)))><