For those not inclined to "work within the GOP" or who have grown weary of trying

And disincentives for any one else. You need more signatures to get on a ballot and extra hoops depending on the State.

The Dems and Reps already have a ballot spot, they just show up and campaign. No worry if they'll be on the ballot.

Thank you for changing the title to the thread. It helps to put you in a little different light.

You are still wrong, though.

At least in Texas most of the liberty folk are in the Republican Party. At the last State Convention the Liberty candidates polled about 1/3 of the delegate votes during the election for Chairman and Vice-Chair. Debra Medina was the candidate for Vice-Chair. If the Libertarians and Constitution Party people, together with some stubborn "independents" had been there, we might have won.

Give up on this splintering of the liberty loving vote already!

some liberty lovers I know who think of the republican party as their enemy and can't behave well at republican meetings because of it. I would prefer those people not even try to work within the republican party.

The New Deal was nearly entirely the design of his administration. FDR even campaigned against Hoover's policies as too interventionist into the economy. FDR then promptly pushed through even larger versions of what Hoover had advocated.

The sole resistance left in the GOP during FDR's tenure to big government, lay in a few members of Congress.

Ike was no friend of small government and presided over the creation of the National Security state.

Nixon was the beginning of the idea of the Imperial Presidency, pushed by Dick Cheney. He instituted wage and price controls and forced America on to a 100% fiat monetary standard, three things anathema to laissez faire. (and the reason Ron Paul first ran for office)

Reagan campaigned as a great libertarian Republican yet was anything but fiscally conservative.

Bush41 and 43 can hardly be equated with anything BUT the establishment old guard and not in anyway laissez faire.

Before Harding & Coolidge, we have Taft, who increased the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission, instituted "dollar diplomacy" overseas, invaded and began the occupation of Nicaragua (for trying to build a canal in Central America without our involvement), and fought for and oversaw the transition from a tariff based revenue to the present income tax based system, pushing for and seeing the 16th amendment be ratified just before leaving office. (he was hardly a conservative or interested in laissez faire, he was a self proclaimed progressive and thought government should be used to solve "society's" problems)

Before him we have Teddy Roosevelt, who was not laissez faire and very much a progressive. (he was known as the leader of the movement at the time) He issued a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine which claimed the right of the U.S. to intervene domestically in other countries. He massively increased regulation of business.

Prior to T. Roosevelt, there was McKinley - a massive foreign interventionist. He started the Spanish-American war, based mostly on "yellow press" journalism hyping events in Cuba. He annexed the Phillipines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and set up a protectorate over Cuba and the formerly independent Kingdom of Hawaii. He was responsible for insisting on high tariffs as a protectionist measure which would later be fodder for the progressives and the push for an income tax instead of tariffs. He also supported the Gold Standard in direct opposition to the bimetallic mandate in the Constitution. (this along with tariff issues and the Spanish-American war, would later be used as justification for the 17th amendment - directly electing senators)

Benjamin Harrison signed the McKinley Tariff which was deemed excess at the time, as well as being the first president to sign into law $1billion of spending in a single year.

Chester Arthur though he was of the Republican faction that supported the patronage system, in practice was more moderate and instituted civil service reform as a continuation of Garfield's work. He also reduced tariffs. Other than that, not much about him is notable, and he probably is one of the few "good guys" of the Republican presidents.

James Garfield spent the six months he had in the office making appointments and beginning the work towards civil service reform. Not much is indicated about his foreign or economic policy.

Rutherford Hayes was the first president not popularly elected. He won based on a deal to end reconstruction and remove federal troops from the south, which he did. He began work on civil service reform as a result of Grant's mess, and called in federal troops to put down railroad worker protests, where troops fired on and killed civilians.

Ulysses Grant's administrations were mired in scandal due to patronage, and nepotism. His economic policies were inflationary initially (as a response to the panic of 1873) and later deflationary (as a response to correct for inflation). He resumed specie payments but also signed into law the alteration of silver coinage such that the fractional coins did not add up to the whole dollar. This drove the dollar out of circulation and set up later problems in the economy and the fight over the Gold Standard which eventually led to the Federal Reserve.

And of course, there is Abe Lincoln.

That makes FOUR, count them FOUR: Harding, Coolidge, Arthur & Garfield as anything close to friends of liberty, laissez faire and non-intervention. That is FOUR presidents out of 17. Less than 25%. Surely, you cannot still claim that the GOP has always been for liberty and small government.

something separate from the Republican Party?