And now a ranting digression into Canadian politics.
When I moved here in 2001, everybody knew that the government -- more to the point, the entire federal Liberal party -- was corrupt. Everybody knew it. People would joke about Canada being a one-party state, like Mexico or Japan. So why exactly do people care about the particular mechanics of this corruption? It's not like it'll affect the election results.
As far as I can tell, in the next election it's all up to Quebec, as usual. The west doesn't matter, as usual. The Liberal party still has the best hope of forming a government, and Ontario voters have a choice between sending a Liberal (good - ensures patronage for your riding) or a Conservative (bad - ensures your riding is screwed over for generations to come.)
Quebec voters choose between Bloc Quebecois and the Liberals. Every election, Qubec sends enough Liberal MPs to make a majority, but enough Bloc MPs to scare the Liberal government into continuing to steal from Alberta and pay off Quebec. I don't see what exactly in the scandal revelations that has overturned this traditional arrangement.
Even supposing that the Liberals can be unseated, what are we hoping for? A return to the way the country was under Mulroney in the 80's? "Corruption-free" is not an adjective I've heard applied to those years. Or are we hoping for a return to the good old days before WWII and the Canada Health Act? Brother, whatever you're on, you're not sharing.
Most of the libertarians I know are funny, smart, competent people with solid rational arguments for their positions and a passionate commitment to promoting their views through argument. If they have such great advocates, why are libertarians so unsuccessful politically?
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I have a few thoughts about it, which are almost certainly non-orignal. But here goes.
Libertarianism appeals to smart, hardworking, moral people. A libertarian is not merely angry that the state is stealing his money and giving it to other people, he is also indignant that the state steals other peoples' money and gives it to him. If you are OK with statism to the extent that the state steals from others for your benefit, there is no appeal to libertarianism. You can achieve that by having nothing to steal -- e.g., by being poor, stupid, or lazy; or by illegally concealing your wealth, which is at least illegal if not immoral. Clearly there are fewer people who are (smart AND hardworking AND moral) than (stupid OR lazy OR immoral), so there's a smaller pool of potential converts for libertarians to draw from.
Libertarianism is a purely rational political philosophy. As such it appeals only to people who choose to reason about politics, a minority of the electorate. Worse, libertarians disdain irrational people instead of pandering to them as do the two major American political parties. (Imagine someone saying "I'm voting Libertarian because my grandpappy was a Libertarian.")
Finally, Libertarians have some weird blind spots. Who runs a blue guy for U.S. Senate? Didn't anybody understand that this guy was totally unelectable because he was blue? I suppose this is another manifestation of libertarian rationalism: Jones was probably selected by the Libertarian Party of Montana as the objectively best candidate on objective grounds such as experience, speaking ability, etc. -- but nobody in the Libertarian Party was able or willing to say "We can't run this guy because people will laugh at us."
And we are.