Costa Rican Liberty

I recently received a post regarding the shake-up with the PML in Costa Rica suggesting that the party had been irreparably compromised by non-libertarians. Upon further investigation, I learned that this was in reference to the dismissals of several staffers and the resignations of several others. While I was aware of the turmoil, at no point did I feel that the party was being compromised, to the contrary the party is becoming a political party.

These growing pains have been painted by the more rigid objectivists and anarchists who invested themselves in the party's early success as the collapse of libertarianism in CR when, in fact, it is simply a re-alignment to the political realities on the ground. That many of these libertarians have chosen to leave the party or withdraw their support purely based on this re-alignment is unfortunate, but if only the most rigidly ideological are "real" libertarians, then 1/2 of one percent is the best the LP will ever do in the States for sure, and not much better in CR. I find it deeply unfortunate that those of you who are the most passionate, articulate and versed in the principles of liberty are also the first to run from a fight.

I continue to believe that a successful libertarian party must be incremental and moderate, working towards gradual increase in liberty just as the creep of statism has been a gradual erosion of liberty. Politics is the art of compromise and, unwilling to accept this fact, the rigid objectivists relegate themselves to the political wilderness forever impotent to affect change and move our nation, or Costa Rica, towards a day when human liberty is again the rule, and not the exception.

I encourage everyone to continue to support the PML and Costa Rican liberty. While I am deeply sympathetic to the ends, and indeed the philosophy, of my more absolutist friends and deeply appreciative of all of their efforts on behalf of liberty in our times, I remain convinced that only by working within the framework of existing power structures, regardless of the risk that that entails, will we see a vibrant and effective libertarian majority emerge. I urge those stalwart defenders of liberty to rethink their abandonment of the PML and the reformist movement within the American LP. As we say in Texas, ya gotta dance with the girl that brung ya!