libertarians want private tyrany.
Have a cookie.
In the US the LP is just a tool used in lame attempts to split the vote of the opposition.
Not really possible for a 3rd party to rise in the US due to the nature of US elections. Pretty much all elections in the US work as follows: If you win even one more vote then the other candidate, you win and they get nothing (for Presidential elections this one vote would be in the EC instead of pop vote like for everything else.
if we had a different system of voting, yes this would be pretty different. A different system could be something along the lines of proportional representation and multi member districts. If you win a certain amount of the votes in a particular area, you'll get a certain number of the allocated represenatatives.
It is indeed not easy at all, except for when you have an extremely well organized party, but without radio and TV chains, I can imagine it's hard to get a foot on the ground in US politics. In the UK, the classical 2 party system has been turned over however, so it is not impossible though (although indeed, their voting system is still different from the US's).
Even a well organized party is going to have a hard time. The only thing that the two major parties are going to agree on EVERY SINGLE TIME is that they want to be in control. They're willing to 'share' the power between one another to ensure that another party doesn't rise up. Making sure another party stays irrelevant is pretty easy when you're the ones writing the elections laws.
They ensure that only the 2 major parties are relevant by doing the following:
1. Making it hard to get onto the ballot
2. Absorbing the ideas of smaller parties
3. Running mass PR campaigns convincing people that voting for the 3rd party isn't worth it -- and while this may be true at certain points -- people are conditioned to just disregard a 3rd party even if the ideas behind them are popular / good.
4. Gerrymandering Districts
and so on and so forth.
