Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Fringies Gonna Fringe

     There’s a lot of early-morning verbing here at the Fortress. Hey, try getting up at 4:00 AM for a few months and see what it does to your vocabulary. But I digress. Apparently, a trend I observed decades ago has reached something of a terminus:

     PORTLAND, Ore. (PORTLAND TRIBUNE) — Oregon Libertarians bared a lot more than just their arms during a rally spurred by the lack of media attention to the third party this election cycle.

     Gary Dye — the Libertarian candidate campaigning against U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley this year — helped organize the demonstration in the buff on the multi-use path of the Glenn Jackson Interstate-205 bridge connecting Oregon and Washington between 1 and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.

     “(It’s) a result of Libertarian candidates for office getting zero attention from the media this year,” Dye said in a message to the Tribune. “Whether I am wearing any clothes remains to be seen.”

     This is not the sort of attention sensible people would seek, Mr. Dye. It will only serve to persuade the as-yet-unpersuaded that you and yours are kooks. Yet this sort of politically self-destructive behavior has become a regular feature in Libertarian Party circles. While the party might not be utterly dominated by its fringe elements, those fringies have become the public faces of the LP, to the great detriment of its outreach efforts.

     And people still ask me why I’m no longer a member of the party. Seriously, Bro? I won’t even wear short sleeve shirts!

2 comments:

  1. The LP does not even get respect from most libertarians. It is a joke, whose sole function appears to be, to aid in the election of the most statist major party candidate.

    The nude thing is pure Portland though. We've had nude bicycle races for years. "Keep Portland weird!" Nobody pays any attention, that I can tell.

    ReplyDelete

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