A Pack of Lone Wolves

The Libertarian Party was formed in the 1970s by a bunch of guys who were disillusioned with Nixon, but couldn't bring themselves to vote Democrat.

The John Birch Society was formed in the 50s, and named after a Christian Missionary who was murdered by the Red Chinese. I think that our government was trying to kiss up to the Red Chinese in those days because they knew about the incident and covered it up. It wasn't till years later that the story was brought out by Chinese refugees. The Birchers appealed to me because they were notoriously anti-communist. When I got in there, however, I learned that the real enemy wasn't the Russian or Chinese Communists, they were just pawns of the "Insider Conspiracy", as was our own government. Looking back on it now, it seems kind of silly, but it made a lot of sense to me at the time. How else could you explain the way people in high places always seem to be screwing up? Maybe they're not really screwing up, maybe they're doing it on purpose with the intent of subverting everything that real Americans hold dear. Well maybe not, but it does seem to look that way at times, or at least it did to me in those days.

The Birchers themselves were accused of being subversive, but no government agency ever filed charges against them. The Birchers even requested that a congressional committee investigate them so that they could clear their name, but it never happened. Finally, a state legislative committee, I believe it was California, conducted an investigation and gave the Birchers a clean bill of health.

I looked the JBS up on the internet a few years ago. They are still around and don't seem to have changed much, only now nobody pays any attention to them. They never were a political party, calling themselves an "educational organization" from the beginning. Their intent was to make people aware of the clear and present danger so that they could oppose it by "all legal, moral, and ethical means".

I certainly would  have voted for Goldwater if I had been old enough to vote at the time. What I liked about him was that he said we shouldn't take any shit from the Russians. If he were alive today, he would probably be saying the same thing about the Islamics, and he would still have my vote. People said that he was a war monger but, even though he was never elected, there has certainly been no shortage of war in our lifetimes. I doubt that Goldwater would have made it any worse in that respect but, of course, there's no way to know that now.

The principle philosophical difference between the Left and the Right is individualism versus collectivism. We, of course, are the individualists and you guys are the collectivists. Being a bunch of individualists, it's hard to keep us organized for very long. We may temporarily rally round the flag for a common cause, but it won't last forever. We are like pack of lone wolves, banding together when necessary, but preferring to go our separate ways whenever possible. That may be our primary weakness, but it also means that you will never know if you've gotten us all. Some day, when you least expect it, a lone survivor may come out of the swamp and start the whole thing all over again. All it takes is one.