SPOILER ALERT: Love it or hate it, if you never watched this movie then go watch it before reading this!
What can I say? I had to find a way to bring one of my favorite movies into this. The premise of the movie is quite simple: The USSR builds a super sub, designed to silently approach, attack and destroy the US swiftly and cleanly, ending the cold war. The Captain does not like what they are planning to have the October do and decides to defect. He assembles a hand picked crew of officers he believes will follow his lead and the sub makes its exit from port.
Russia tells the US the captain is a rogue madman to get them to help destroy the sub. The hero (of course!) figures out the captain is not mad, opens his big mouth, and ends up chasing the sub part way around the world. Classic Sean Connery, along with some young actor who clearly demonstrated that he actually does know how to use a prop gun, contrary to his recent statements made after causing the death…well…we don’t need to go there.
So what’s the point? Spies, intrigue, escape! And in the end, the “good guys” appear to have won.
The liberty movement is in the middle of its own Hunt for Red October. The bad guys, who I will identify shortly, built a weapon. It escaped from them, and for decades they have fought to chase it down and destroy it. But who are the bad guys and were they always bad? In the movie, one could argue that some of the concepts that became the USSR and led to the Russian revolution might have had good intent. They were, after all, living under harsh conditions and the rule of a series of nasty hereditary rulers – the Russian Czars.
But the leadership after the revolution in Russia was quickly overtaken and devolved into a corrupt and evil regime, often suppressing their people worse than the government they overthrew. Sound familiar? Our bad guy for the sake of this discussion is the political system of the United States. It was not always bad, but this is not 1787. The government is run by the power brokers within the political system, so I believe they are the real “bad guys”.
Our country built a weapon called freedom. It has gotten away, and the political system has been attempting to capture and destroy it for years. Oppressive election laws and cooperation from the media in their attempt to silence all of us who call ourselves “Third Parties” are one of their main weapons. Just the fact that our government was originally designed to not have political parties – certainly not just two – disputes the claim, by both the left and right media, that we have a “two party system”.
Obviously many of us involved in partisan politics don’t agree with each other’s ideas and proposed solutions. There are parties that I think are full of absolute lunatics. Their ideas are insane – at least in my opinion. I am sure they think the same of me, along with others who have the same beliefs I have. A few of them are clearly enemies of the liberty movement, and support increased suppression by the government.
But this discussion is not about people opposing liberty. It is about the stupidity and ignorance within the liberty movement itself at this point in time. Ignorance on the part of party leaders who don’t shoot at the enemy but at their own allies. Stupidity on the part of people who blindly follow them. Is that harsh enough? Some of this is on one side, some of this is on the other — or I should say others.
Everyone in the liberty movement should be an ally. We should all be fighting to find the submarine called Freedom to rescue it. Instead, some of us are chasing after it underwater, where we should be, while others sit on the surface flying their party sanctioned flags and shooting at anything that surfaces or even moves.
Just as they were not all in one vessel attempting rescue in the movie, we do not all need to be in the same party. Different arguments are needed. Did the “good guys” just send out one ship? No. So why do we have one 50 year old party that attempts to deal with every aspect and every question of liberty? It is the ship on the surface, flying flags and shooting at its own people. The bottom is covered in barnacles and rust, and its wake is full of leaking oil and people jumping overboard.
The Libertarian party needs to go into dry dock and either be scrapped or rebuild itself. Some seem to want to rebuild. Some of us who jumped want a newer vessel. A party built to show the public a message they might listen to. One running candidates who do not look and act insane in the public’s eyes.
Red October is still out there, and we need to rescue it.
But how do we build a better party?
