WTH???
Mike Gravel recently joined the Libertarian Party.
It is people like him that separate the men from the boys (or the women from the girls) when it comes to claiming one is a libertarian.
Claiming oneself to be libertarian (or Libertarian) is much in vogue these days. Especially among Republicans who are fed up with the "business as usual" aspects of Washington politics. However, many fail the important sniff test of big vs. small government.
And Gravel fails that test.
If there were a sanity test he'd fail that one too, but that is besides the point. Gravel is a big supporter of direct democracy and drafted the proposed constitutional amendment to allow a National Initiative, allowing citizens to initiate federal legislation.
You cannot be a big government libertarian anymore than you can be a liberal libertarian (although you can be a big government Libertarian or a liberal Libertarian, but you are just deceiving yourself.)
Direct Democracy and National Initiative are manners in which the federal government would expand exponentially. The federal government needs to contract and the states need to reassert their authority. The more local the control to more people have a say in their government.
In order to lay claim to being a libertarian (and hence a Libertarian) Gravel has to cherry pick specific votes during his three decades in politics while ignoring the bulk of them.
And to top it off Gravel is considering another run for President, this time on the LP ticket. Outstanding, instead of a no name candidate with no chance the party may offer up a known candidate with no chance.
Aside from aligning itself with the Marijuana Party and allowing its candidates to represent multiple "third parties" this is another reason we have a two party system in the US. If the Libertarian Party allows big government statists who have demonstrable histories of not being libertarians on their ticket they will never be anything but a "third" party.
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