Since earning my degree in Political Science back during the Lincoln Administration, I have been an interested wanderer across the political landscape.

I began largely at the position of my liberal professors.  Things like Fairness, Compassion, and Equality, I believed, could only be achieved through active government coercion.  People were bad, government was good.

Over a period of years, however, it slowly dawned on me that not only were we taxing and spending our nation into poverty, but none of the things I cared about were much improved.  Government Power and Bureaucracy had grown, the National Debt had grown, but little (that could be attributed to government action) had changed in people's lives.

OK, so I looked around and the only "real" alternative seemed to be the Republican Party -- the party of Liberty and Fiscal Conservatism.  Yeah, right.  That romance lasted about a decade, because it soon became painfully obvious that the GOP was more interested in the exercise of power than either of the things they claimed to stand for.  Once granted power by the American People, they quickly shifted into just another party of pork, special favors, and exploding deficits.  Worse yet, John Ashcroft, et al launched an assault on the Constitution, States Rights, and Liberty unmatched in modern times.  Again, I was politically homeless.

So here I am a Libertarian.  I guess I have pretty much been a "small L" libertarian most of my life...I chaffe at government (or most anyone else) telling me how to live.  And no, it's not because I am a wild and crazy guy; I'm one of the most boring people you could ever regret knowing.  In spite of the fact that I came of age during the time of Haight-Asbury and the "Sexual Revolution", I have never ingested a controlled substance (no, not even marijuana) nor patronized a "lady of the night".  Hell, I was raised in "Pennsylvania Dutch" country by parents descended from Huguenots who gave up vineyards, a winery, and even family because of their deeply-held religious beliefs.  I am hopelessly straight-laced!

Furthermore, quite frankly, I find the Libertarian Party almost as frustrating as the Rs and Ds.  While the Rs and Ds will say and/or do anything to get elected, and thus wield power and dispense pork, the LP wouldn't know how to win an election if the Hound of  Victory snuck up on them from behind and bit them in the ass.

Many Libertarians, and certainly those in control of the Party for the past couple of decades, would rather be ideologically pure than get elected.  Which, of course, is a wonderful Catch 22.  They have this separate, Liberty-focused party, but they have no interest in doing anything to make more Liberty a reality.  I don't know, maybe I'll just go off in a corner somewhere and form my own, one person, nation.