What would be interesting to see is a chart showing the originally stated goals of these social aid solutions as well as their performance - plus how much they've grown from their original stated purpose, as well as the changes made to them.

It'd be hard as hell to get that info simply because it'd show that our government just continues to grow and that each program started will do nothing but expand past its original scope.

Like I've said before, it's the nature of governments to grow into, and exert increasingly strict control over, any aspect of life that they're not explicitly barred from in their own original design documents (in which case they struggle to find ways around their own rules, and grow into the forbidden areas anyhow). That's why the entire US Constitution explicitly declares what the limits on government are, without ever explicitly declaring what powers it should have. The Founders knew the powers would eventually be "every single damn thing we don't expressly forbid, and probably some of the things we do, at least when we face major threats real or imagined." Until the Prohibition Amendment, everything that wasn't a restriction on government power was a restriction on government procedure, and after the results of the Prohibition Amendment became too obvious to ignore, it was repealed.

The distinguishing feature of libertarians seems to be the inability to understand this simple fact, resulting in the entertaining positions they stake out that always involve some variant of, "Human nature isn't fair to our political party." Not to mention the failure to understand the mathematics of the popular vote, specifically the fact that as long as there are two or more other people voting on anything, other peoples' votes will always outnumber your own, thus "rigging the vote" against any single individual's opinion, no matter how determined the individual is to Save The World.

The position you describe, however, isn't one that's restricted to Libertarians by any means. The fringe of every persuasion seem to have that mindset. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Libertarians don't face a huge uphill battle - they do. Human nature definitely favors getting the most "stuff" with the least amount of work. If the work to get that stuff involves taking it from others and is less risky/labor-intensive than actually producing it then that's what will likely happen. Here we've got that situation occurring. The poor will always outnumber the rich - and probably even the middle class. As soon as people figured out they could bribe the poor to get votes, they started doing so (and IIRC, this happened as far back as Roman times). What the Libertarians are attempting to do is take away said bribes and still get elected. Very difficult, that.

It's doable, however, based on some key strategies:

1 - Portions of the Libertarian philosophy really appeal to the liberal mindset. Freedom of religion, speech, press, etc.
2 - Portions of the mindset appeal to the conservative mindset as well - reducing the size of government being chief among them.
3 - The combination of the two appeal to the large group that's centrist in thought.

The message they need to be crafting should be designed to highlight those aspects appealing to the largest groups while focusing less on things like legalizing pot and other more fractious issues. Why? Because they need to garner a broader base of support than they've got now. It's a chicken/egg thing, but I know I personally like most of their points (much better than the R or D folks) - but when election time comes around I'm stuck voting for the lesser of two evils simply because I know the Libertarian candidates either couldn't get the job done or won't have enough votes to matter.

The original concept of the Libertarian party was to knit a third political organization out of the disgruntled fringes of the two major parties. Not only does it logically follow that said party would contain a surprising number of people using "fringe logic," but it's been demonstrated so reliably by the hijackers whose LEAST fractious demand is "LEGALIZE POT!" that even the Party's staunchest defenders can't reasonably deny that their party appeals mostly to the nutters who were banished to the fringes for good reason.

Portions of the Libertarian platform might appeal to liberals, other portions to conservatives, and still other portions to the center than stabilizes both. But like my dad always said, whenever you mix portions of dog shit and ice cream, the result tastes a lot more like dog shit than ice cream to almost everybody. Sadly, until the Libertarians start taking this little aspect of human nature into account, the Big Two won't even need to spend a penny on "cheating" to keep the Libertarians marginalized.

I don't disagree that they've definitely got problems getting a decent message together. That goes without saying. However, the problem is that until they do there's no challenge to the two parties right now. This is very unfortunate because we keep dealing with the excesses of both.

Well, we need someone to organize a third party that's based on the concept of "winning," instead of "social justice" or "whatever anybody wants." Get an organization put together, set up the rules and regulations for all the stuff from selecting our candidates to cleaning up after meetings (that one alone would get the Harried Janitor vote for sure), and we'd end up with... something identical to the Republicans, or the Democrats. But a viable third party nonetheless. I vote we call it the "Spoiler" or "LULZ" party.

If Ross Perot could manage it...

Whatever anybody wants is definitely a recipe for failure. Could go for Constitutionalists (tho' lulz is definitely a vote-winnar in my book). Key tenets:

1 - Try to get back to just what's in the Constitution.
2 - Less Federal spending.*
3 - More States' rights.

*Since this is the big one for me, it would involve:
1 - Cut the budget the first year until it's under projected tax revenues
2 - 10% cut each year after that - 3/4 to pay off debt, 1/4 back to the people for the first three years. After that, 3/4 back to the people and 1/4 to pay off debt
3 - Goal is to have a total tax rate of roughly 10% until debt is eliminated, then give all debt payments back to the people and reduce the tax burden appropriately.
4 - Feds are responsible for intrastate infrastructure (mostly roads, specific ports), managing a monetary system, and most heinous/largest crimes, maintaining a quality military.
5 - States take care of the rest.
6 - Eliminate most social welfare - if a person is able bodied, no welfare. Period.