STOP! You are stealing all the resources!

If you have been in the libertarian movement, you have heard this before. It may have been presented as the following:

• Those who don’t fight within the Republican Party are the reason we can’t take over the GOP
• Those who fight for libertarian leaning Republicans are wasting their time and stealing votes or money from our candidates
• We can’t have primaries because we only have so many candidates and so much money

This is classic loser talk.  Instead of focusing on the few resources you currently have, go out and recruit more people and raise more money.  

In 2018, Marco Battaglia ran against me for the Libertarian Party of Iowa Gubernatorial nomination.  We got statewide media coverage in our primary.  We grew the party by something like 40 percent if my memory is correct.  That year, the party had more media coverage in Iowa than in the entire party history combined.  

The naysayers told us that having a primary was ignorant.  Why not both run for a different office to give candidates more options in the general election? 

Marco and I believed we were building the party.  We were bringing in new people.  We were getting our current members excited about choosing the direction we were headed in.  We weren’t focused on debating how to allocate the few resources the party already had.  We knew that wasn’t enough. 

Similarly, these discussions on what is the best option which party to fight in is largely a waste of time.  I don’t have any use for the Republican Party.  I won’t be convinced.  That said, if someone else wants to try and build within the GOP, I am not going to waste my time criticizing them.  I am here to build the Libertarina Party.

If I waste all my time telling you why your idea is stupid, I am not building what I think is best. 

It is time that we quit asking the question of how to allocate current people and money and start asking how ourselves how we get more people and money.  It is also time we quit acting like central planners and allow market competition to fix our issues and identify the best methods to achieve liberty.