While we're on the subject of the Cato Institute, it's worth checking out their new report, written by Gene Healy and Tim Lynch, about Bush's abysmal track record on constitutional matters. It's funny, just a few months ago I had a hardcore liberal accuse me of being a "primitive reactionary" for defending the Cato Institute against his charge that the think tank was in the pocket of corporate paymasters. I pointed out that less than 10% of Cato's funding comes from corporate sources, but what good are facts against someone with an ideological axe to grind?
Liberals generally like to think of libertarians as Republican lackeys and shills for big business (while conservatives tend to think of libertarians as liberal perverts). But the reality is that big business benefits too much from the kind of corporate welfare that a bloated government hands out and that libertarians would like to do away with. Libertarianism, with its emphasis on free markets, is highly popular with entrepeneurs and small business people; big business, from the oil companies to the pharmaceutical industry to corporate agribusiness interests, don't like the free market much at all. They benefit far too much from tax subsidies that transfer billions of our tax dollars every year into their bank accounts.
The oil industry is a great example. I'm not bothered by the fact that the oil companies are experiencing record profits right now. Their average profits are well in line with other industries at about 8.5%. What bothers me is that while they're experiencing record profits, we're still transferring enormous amounts of tax dollars in the form of tax subsidies and tax incentives, liability protections and much more. The last energy bill contained tens of billions of dollars worth of corporate welfare that took money directly out of our pockets and put it into theirs. Profit is fine with me; government-approved theft is not. And they got that money taken from us and given to them not by supporting libertarians, but by spending millions of dollars to buy the votes of Republicans and Democrats.
While you're looking at their critique of Bush's abysmal record on the constitution, you might also want to check out their two reports on Clinton's poor record in that area as well. Most people don't realize that about 80% of the provisions in the Patriot Act were included in legislation that Clinton tried to pass in 1993 and 1994. The Republicans, by the way, stopped that legislation from passing and screamed holy hell about Clinton's "power grab" and his willingness to shred the 4th amendment with things like roving wiretaps. But that was then and this now. Now the Republicans are all for those vastly expanded Federal law enforcement powers and much more, the Democrats rolled over and played dead when it passed (one Senator had the guts to vote against the Patriot Act - ONE) but now they don't like it one bit.
So one party is in the position of being opposed to the expansion of constitutionally dubious Federal authority when the other party is in the White House, but enthusiastically in favor of that expanded authority if they control the executive branch (and not only for it, but willing to savage the patriotism of anyone who dares speak out against it). The other party is in the position of being for that expansion when it suits their political interests - either when they control the White House or when they're afraid of appearing "soft on terrorism" - but against it once the polls turn against it. Now that's political courage for you. And the folks who were against it regardless of which party was in power and regardless of what the polls said? You guessed it - libertarians.
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I didn't say it had anything to do with their rightness or wrongness, it just highlights the difference between libertarianism in the real-world and libertarianism on paper. In the real world, libertarian positions that favor the powerful -- deregulation, privatization, cutting taxes, etc. -- are the ones that get put on a pedestal. The rest of the libertarian agenda gets short shrift. Your average slob could be excused for thinking that libertarianism consisted only of right-wing economic beliefs.
It's just common knowledge. The Republican Liberty Caucus is the libertarian wing of the GOP Congress, with members such as ultra-libertarian Ron Paul (R-Texas). And of course it goes much deeper than that when you get to non-elected political operatives. It is precisely this faction that GOP pollsters are worried about losing thanks to the decidedly non-libertarian policies of George W. Bush and the rise of the Religious Right.
For better or worse, the US has a two party system. If you want to get your point of view heard, you do it within one of the two major parties (each of which represents a disparate coalition of varying interests) of you can form an ineffectual third party and get no say in anything. The libertarians who don't choose the second option almost invariably throw their hat in the ring with the Republicans.
Ed, for some reason my reply from yesterday didn't go through, so I'll try again.
I didn't say that it had anything to do with its rightness or wrongness, just that libertarianism in the real world is often much different than libertarianism on paper. In the real world, those libertarian positions that suit the powerful -- tax cuts, privitization, deregulation, etc. -- are the ones that get the attention. The civil libertarian positions tend to get short shrift. Your average slob could be fogiven for thinking that libertarianism was all about right-wing economic beliefs.
A good example of this would be the lobbying firm disguised as an online magazine called Tech Central Station. They posture themselves as libertarians, and they have a number of libertarians writing for them (who occasionally write good articles), but they're sponsored by major corporations like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, GM, Exxon-Mobil, etc. Their articles unswervingly support the agenda of those corporations. You can read articles there attacking global warming, hybrid cars, people who blame soft drinks for obesity and diabetes, and as strange as it sounds, open source software. Perhaps they've also written articles supporting church-state separation or denouncing the theocratic tendencies of the Religious Right, but if so, I've never seen one. I guess it's just not what their pay-masters are interested in.
Now you can accuse TCS of "dishonestly using libertarian rhetoric", and I'd agree to an extent, but the problem is that a large fraction if not the majority of self-styled libertarians are like this. So you quickly run into a No True Scotsman problem.
It's just common knowledge. The Republican Liberty Caucus is the libertarian wing of the Republican Congress, with such hardcore libs like Ron Paul (R-Texas). Whether or not libertarians who count themselves as Republicans outnumber those in the LP, I don't know. But when a libertarian chooses to support one of the two major parties (as anyone must if they want a say in how things are run), it is almost invariably the Republican Party.
Ed, for some reason my reply from yesterday didn't go through, so I'll try again.
I didn't say that it had anything to do with its rightness or wrongness, just that libertarianism in the real world is often much different than libertarianism on paper. In the real world, those libertarian positions that suit the powerful -- tax cuts, privitization, deregulation, etc. -- are the ones that get the attention. The civil libertarian positions tend to get short shrift. Your average slob could be fogiven for thinking that libertarianism was all about right-wing economic beliefs.
A good example of this would be the lobbying firm disguised as an online magazine called Tech Central Station. They posture themselves as libertarians, and they have a number of libertarians writing for them (who occasionally write good articles), but they're sponsored by major corporations like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, GM, Exxon-Mobil, etc. Their articles unswervingly support the agenda of those corporations. You can read articles there attacking global warming, hybrid cars, people who blame soft drinks for obesity and diabetes, and as strange as it sounds, open source software. Perhaps they've also written articles supporting church-state separation or denouncing the theocratic tendencies of the Religious Right, but if so, I've never seen one. I guess it's just not what their pay-masters are interested in.
Now you can accuse TCS of "dishonestly using libertarian rhetoric", and I'd agree to an extent, but the problem is that a large fraction if not the majority of self-styled libertarians are like this. So you quickly run into a No True Scotsman problem.
It's just common knowledge. The Republican Liberty Caucus is the libertarian wing of the Republican Congress, with such hardcore libs like Ron Paul (R-Texas). Whether or not libertarians who count themselves as Republicans outnumber those in the LP, I don't know. But when a libertarian chooses to support one of the two major parties (as anyone must if they want a say in how things are run), it is almost invariably the Republican Party.
Liberals generally like to think of libertarians as Republican lackeys and shills for big business...
Unfortunately, too many libertarians fit that stereotype to a tee: they're so addicted to their "liberal=socialist=commie=nazi" mindset -- and the overblown-teen-angst of Ayn Rand -- that they're completely unable to resist a Republican party that feeds them their drug of choice while betraying all of the principles for which they claim to stand.
Too many of today's "libertarians" are like abused crack-whores: they cling desperately to their Republican abusers because they're terrified of change, terrified of admitting they made a mistake, and terrified of giving up the almost-religious certitudes that made the world easier for them to understand.
Libertarianism, with its emphasis on free markets, is highly popular with entrepeneurs and small business people; big business, from the oil companies to the pharmaceutical industry to corporate agribusiness interests, don't like the free market much at all.
True -- but that doesn't stop big biz from using libertarian rhetoric to rally support and disguise their true intentions. Nor, apparently, does it stop many libertarians from sucking it up, swallowing it without hesitation, and calling critics of those tax breaks "socialists."
It's sad, really -- if libertarians hadn't made such a pathetic joke of themselves, they might be a credible force for good.
I don't think that most people really understand the libertarian philosophy. I know it took me a long time to understand it as well as I do (that is to say - not completely). Part of the problem is that they do not follow the trend of political parties to be either liberals or conservatives. In part because libertarianism isn't political party per say, it's a philosophy that encompasses politics, economics and society. There are many libertarian ideas that I agree with and many more I do not. I found it a very amusing dichotomy when I took an online "political philosophy" test that said I was a social libertarian / economic socialist. It is was even more amusing when I realized it was an accurate assesment.
Well, one thing true libertarianism has going for it is consistency. Republicans speak of small government, but then end up passing so many laws that regulate personal lives and decisions that you NEED a bigass government in order to enforce all those laws. So inevitably, they have to either tax or borrow in order to run that big government. They might want smaller government, but the very fact that they want to regulate people's private lives means that they cannot have small government.
Libertarians don't really care what other people do in their personal lives, so they can actually pursue small government as a goal because they won't be regulating every little thing. Hence the consistency.
Democrats are at least a little bit more honest than Republicans in that they will never promise smaller government, but will still attempt to regulate and license the life out of you. Even going so far as to classify smoking in your own house as child abuse. So there is no way that Democrats could ever arrive at a small government solution. However, they too are consistent, just not in a manner that promotes liberty.
So libertarians have always had to chose, go for the consistent party that never promises smaller government because their policies will never support it, or the inconsistent party that say they want smaller government, but their policies will never allow it. Which puts me firmly in the "pox on both their houses" camp.
Raging Bee wrote:
While I tend to agree on the first part - the "socialist" epithet is tiresome - I disagree on the second part. I know of very few libertarians who are "unable to resist" the Republican party. Indeed, the very existence of a report like the one I link to above suggests otherwise. Every libertarian group I know of has been hammering Bush all along, and the Republican-controlled Congress.
Again, who are these libertarians who are allegedly clinging to the Republican party? I know only one libertarian who voted Republican in the last election and he did so while still criticizing them strongly for a wide range of things. And I know even more libertarians who voted for Kerry last time, also while holding their nose (mostly because the Libertarian Party candidate was a total nutball and they simply couldn't bring themselves to vote for Bush, precisely because of those betrayals of principle). You are describing no libertarian that I know, and I bet I know a lot more libertarians than you do.
Yes, big business loves free market rhetoric, but they don't mean it. And we libertarians point out constantly that they don't mean it. Again, you seem to be describing a hypothetical libertarian in your head, not any actual libertarian in the real world. Please cite me a libertarian who says that critics of tax subsidies for big business are "socialists". I doubt you can. Every libertarian I know of is strongly opposed to that kind of corporate welfare. That is the position of the LP, and the position of think tanks like the Cato Institute, and the position of every libertarian thinker I've ever read.
Soldats wrote:
Or they can do what I do, refuse to vote for either major party under any circumstances. You don't have to support either of them, there are third parties. And in the long run, the only way libertarian ideas are going to be taken seriously is by gaining electoral share. The LP will never replace the two major parties (hell, the way they're going, there might not BE an LP in another few years), but by gaining electoral share they will force the other parties to take their ideas more seriously and adopt a portion of them to syphon off support. That's how third parties influence national policy.
Ed: you probably do indeed know more real libertarians than I do. Maybe the ideological crack-whores I heard from weren't really libertarians, or were just too stupid to understand their own principles, or too weak to really uphold them (individual liberty is HARD WORK, as Bush might say if he knew anything about either subject).
Soldats: here's another proposition: libertarians and mainstream liberals are natural allies.
Both libertarians and liberals support individual liberty; oppose unjust discrimination; oppose full-blown socialism; support secularism, democracy, and freedom of speech and religion; oppose state interference in private lives; and oppose intolerant theocratic politics and the unprincipled violence it spawns. However, liberals and libertarians differ widely on how, exactly, to achieve their common objectives -- both both desperately need each other to stay on-track and make a sensible policy. America needs liberals to prevent the evils of too little regulation; libertarians to prevent the evils of too much; and an ongoing dialogue between the two to ensure that all sensible ideas are fairly discussed.
I would agree that libertarians and liberals have much more in common than either of them typically realize. I think both stem from the same tradition of classical liberalism in the Jefferson/John Locke/John Stuart Mill line of thinkers.
I'm pretty much libertarian until you get to social welfare programs. "Kick the old ladies out on the streets and let the charities take care of them" is not somewhere I'm willing to go. I think it's society's responsibility as a whole to take care of the weak and sick (you will notice Exxon is neither). I can't live in a society that shirks that responsiblity.
Otherwise I like all the other stuff. Don't have immigration laws at all. Anybody who wants to come here, let them. No recreational drug laws (but with blunt warning labels). Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. No government involvement in marriage. No government involvement in anything you do in your private life. Legal prostitution (of adults). If you don't like cigarette smoke in restaurants, don't go to the ones that allow it. I don't. The government existing to protect from force, fraud and theft and that's about it.
And, with the frightening recent rise of both faux-Christian and faux-Muslim theofascism, we now have a common enemy of a sort not seen since Hitler.
Also, per you mention of the "total nutballs" in the libertarian movement, well, us liberals could help clean up that act, and I'm sure the libertarians will be happy to help us clean out the loony-left. The way I see it, no one loses who doesn't deserve to lose.
UP WITH THE LIB-LIB ALLIANCE!!
Ed wrote:
That may be a bit oversimplified. Big business often uses libertarian arguments and resources from libertarian think-tanks in order to rid themselves of regulations they don't like. They even use them to argue for tax breaks that are effectively a form of subsidy. Of course they ignore those arguments when it comes to protecting genuine subsidies, but that's simply one example out of many where libertarianism doesn't mesh well with practical politics. It is very easily molded into the politics of the powerful simply by way of shifting emphasis.
In Washington at least, libertarians generally exist as a faction within the Republican Party; the Libertarian Party itself is too ineffectual to attract anyone who wants their policies taken seriously. As a result of forming a coalition with the neo-cons and the religious right, only the anti-regulatory, anti-tax part of libertarian philosophy gets much of a hearing.
I, for one, am a Libertarian who typically votes Democrat. Why? Because I can stand fiscal liberalism more than I can stand social conservatism. I hate having to choose between the two, but if supporting big government is the only way to ensure that our private lives aren't legislated by a group of borderline theocrats, then so be it. (Not that Democrats don't also attempt to legislate our private lives. They just tend to focus on more trivial aspects.)
Lately I've become so frustrated with the Democrats that I've been thinking of starting to vote Libertarian directly. It's difficult, however, not to support the Democrats when they're the only part that has a chance of ousting the current regime.
here's another proposition: libertarians and mainstream liberals are natural allies.
I find it very hard to find where liberals are socially liberal. Banning smoking in private restaurants isn't the most liberty conscious thing to do. To go further and start a campaign to classify smoking at home as a form of child abuse is right up there with the abortion is murder crowd. I'm sorry, but liberals have far more in common with the fundamentalist wing of the Republican party than they do with libertarians.
Steve Reuland wrote:
I don't think this has anything to do with the legitimacy of libertarian positions. The fact that big business may dishonestly use libertarian rhetoric doesn't mean that the authentic libertarian positions are wrong. In practical politics, politicians will borrow and steal any bit of rhetoric they can to convince people to vote for them. Many on the right also borrow rhetoric from the left in many ways, such as the ID advocates' appeal to fairness. By this standard, any set of ideas could be invalidated.
You certainly aren't speaking of the Washington I know. It's certainly true that many Republicans will borrow libertarian rhetoric, particularly on the welfare state and on taxes, but that does not mean that libertarians are a faction within the Republican party. I know or have known many of the leaders of libertarian politics over the years and I think they would all be very surprised to hear that they are a faction of the Republican party. Ask Perry Willis, a frequent commenter here who was chairman of the libertarian party, and I doubt he would agree with that statement at all. I'd like to know where this coalition is, who belongs to it and what they actually do. I just don't think it exists.
I'd like to know where this coalition is, who belongs to it and what they actually do. I just don't think it exists.
It's possible they're talking about this: http://www.rlc.org/
The Democratic party has an equivalent: http://www.progress.org/dfc/
Soldats: the silly extremism you cite is precisely the sort of thing a Lib-Lib Alliance could prevent: the whole point of the alliance would be to scrape off the barnacles of silliness from both sides of the hull.
If you want an example from the other side, remember the Montana Freemen, the survivalists, and all those other backwoods loonies raving about the UN and black helicopters?
We help you with your nutjobs, you help us with ours. (And no, not all liberals support a ban on smoking in all public places.)
While I'm happy that libertarians are opposed to corporate welfare and law restricting personal freedoms, their desire to remove most if not all government oversight of big business strikes me as a very dangerous part of their platform.
I believe that libertarians like to argue that local government, at the behest of the local community, should be the ones responsible for keeping big business in line and people safe, but I also believe that it's naive to think that this will work. The big multinationals are simply too large, too powerful these days for any local oversight to be effective, and they would be able to scam, pollute, and con people with impugnity. Does anyone seriously think that abolishing all national pollution controls (as pathetic as they may be in some places) will lead to less pollution?
Libertarianism in this regard would only work if everybody played honestly and fairly with each other. As we know (Enron), where money is at stake, that rarely, if ever happens.
I consider myself a libertarian liberal. I'm not a pure libertarian for reasons such as tacitus mentions. I've known too many Randroids who analyse everything in terms of an axiomatic set of individual rights, and wind up believing in very principled stances which would just be utter disaster in real life.
Soldats wrote:
Leftist != liberal. I know, I know. Everbody uses the word "liberal" to mean "leftist." Everybody shouldn't. It destroys a valuable distinction. I'm a LIBERal. The fundamental difference between my position and that of most libertarians I know is that I feel that property rights are a lesser reflection of individual self-sovereignty whereas most libertarians seem to consider property rights to be the moral equivalent of self-sovereignty.
I'm sorry, but liberals have far more in common with the fundamentalist wing of the Republican party than they do with libertarians.
This is precisely the sort of rhetoric that keeps libertarians in the dark, stinking swamp of irrelevance. First you compared liberals to the USSR, now you're comparing us to right-wing fundies. Both comparisons are slavish echoes of Republican talking-points (and benefit only Republicans), and both are clearly proven false by several decades of overt liberal activism: we have consistently (if not always coherently or effectively) opposed BOTH of these evils, and the Republicns, knowing we were largely right, could only demonize us with a relentless campaign of lies dating back to the McCarthy era. (Who saved Europe from Communism? Liberals Roosevelt and Truman, not Republicans.) Too many so-called libertarians have swallowed this kool-aid for too long, and it's done your cause no good. Isn't it about time to rethink who your friends really are? (Hint: at least the liberals haven't been lying to you since the '50s.)
You're coming out of the closet? Not like I'm a libertarian or anything but... that's brave man... I wish... uhh... can we talk about politics sometime? Never mind... not like I'm a libertarian or something...
:)
I do agree with several posters that in the past far too many libertarians have been led along by the Republicans. Bush is *great* in this regard... he has *totally* popped that bubble as far as I'm concerned... and a look at sites like reason.com seems to support the idea that he's popped it for others as well.
Nobody likes libertarians cause they don't really fit on anyone's bandwagon. Most political bandwagons (including the two major parties) are basically coalitions of special interest groups trying to get their hands on government so they can do special favors for their narrow-minded constituency. Libertarians have all this theory about objective government, principles, universal rights, (real) free enterprise, etc. and that gets in the way. If rights are universal and the economy and the state is seperate, how are we going to give special favors to our friends?!?
A side effect of this is that when Democrats are in power libertarians start sounding like Republicans and when Republicans are in power they start sounding like Democrats.
Adam wrote:
Bingo. You just hit it right on the nose. That's why conservatives think libertarians are liberals and liberals think libertarians are conservatives. Both sides are so trapped inside that simple dichotomy - and often define themselves as much by who they oppose as by what they're for - that everything gets filtered through that prism. You simply must be one or the other, there's no other way to look at it.
Soldats: the silly extremism you cite is precisely the sort of thing a Lib-Lib Alliance could prevent: the whole point of the alliance would be to scrape off the barnacles of silliness from both sides of the hull.
You know, I'd love to agree, but check idiocy like this out and tell me that it isn't too late. It's the poll numbers that scare the crap out of me - it's an indication that the majority of people are willing to just let the government walk right over everyone's lives.
And I'm sorry if I use the term liberal, leftist, progressive interchangeably, it's incredibly hard to keep track of which faction has which ideas and stances - kinda like how you guys confuse libertarians with republican and crony corporatist shills :)
And no, what keeps libertarians in the dark sinking swamp of irrelevance is that our political system is geared towards supporting a two party system with two parties that are more alike that they would like to admit. I don't recall comparing liberals to the USSR, and I am quite familiar with history and able to do a google search to fill in the gaps where I'm not that familiar. Riding on the coattails of predecessors isn't a particularly heartening endorsement of whatever ideas it is that the Democrats are currently peddaling. I think the last Democratic candidate that I though actually had any poignant ideas was Howard Dean. The rest of them really don't impress me at all.
"While I'm happy that libertarians are opposed to corporate welfare and law restricting personal freedoms, their desire to remove most if not all government oversight of big business strikes me as a very dangerous part of their platform."
Big business loves regulation to some extent. It's a barrier to entry. Try starting a car company for example. There are *books* of regulations that you must conform to. Paying people to go through all that and then communicate it to your engineers is going to add millions and millions of dollars to your budget. These dollars don't go directly into the design or marketing of the car. They're basically a fee for entry into the market.
Of course, they dislike it when it gets in their way. That's why they usually fight it at first. But once they get used to a new regulation they'll usually fight to protect it as it has the effect of shutting out competitors. Regulation can also force obsolescence of old stuff, which makes big companies lots of money selling replacements.
Here's an analogy:
You're a basketball player. Your league wants to raise the hoop. At first you fight this cause you are concerned that it might impact your skill somehow. You're going to have to practice a lot with the new hoop and you're not sure you can adapt. However, the league gets it's way and raises the hoop. You go out and practice with the new setup and find that, hey, you're still pretty good.
Now, why *wouldn't* you want the hoop lowered again? Think about it... :)
Hint: higher hoops are harder for new players.
Soldats, while I believe libertarianism is about as practical a form of government as communism (yokes, ducks for cover) I agree with much of what you said in your last post. The two party duopoly on the reins of power in the USA is a bad thing and stifles true democratic debate. Just take gerrymandering congressional districts as an example. Incumbants are so firmly entrenched (so wonderfully lampooned by the Daily Show last week) that only a couple of dozen seats out of nearly 500 are in play even when sentiment changes dramatically. Sadly there is little incentive for them to do anything about that.
I also agree about the smoking==child abuse article, but please credit some of us liberals/socialists/left-wingers with some commonsense. It's quite possible to believe in sensible government oversight (I'm defending the existence of the FDA on another thread right now) without getting silly about it.
Good points, AdamIerymenko. One other interesting aspect is that some multinationals have recently been calling for the government to put stricter environmental, anti-global warming controls in place in order to enable them to take steps to clean up their act. These businesses claim they want to do it now (and I tend to believe them) but if they did so unilaterally the extra costs would make them uncompetitive and drive them out of business.
This is a case where government controls would benefit businesses and the general public.
"Good points, AdamIerymenko. One other interesting aspect is that some multinationals have recently been calling for the government to put stricter environmental, anti-global warming controls in place in order to enable them to take steps to clean up their act. These businesses claim they want to do it now (and I tend to believe them) but if they did so unilaterally the extra costs would make them uncompetitive and drive them out of business."
Good dig, but no, they're fighting those. :)
They'll fight them until they pass. Then they'll adapt to them. Then they won't want them to go away.
Big business hates change. It doesn't want new regulations put into place, and it doesn't want old ones taken away. Both of those things change the market landscape in ways that *might* allow a competitor to get the upper hand.
I did say some multinationals--maybe it's a few... :-)
Adam wrote:
This is exactly right, which again is why small businesses tend to like libertarian ideas and big business tends to hate them. A perfect example of this is the oil industry, where older refineries are grandfathered in on a wide range of environmental laws that new refineries must meet. The established companies love that and they've actually lobbied against giving any other exemptions from those laws because they act as a barrier to prevent competition.
You know, I'd love to agree, but check idiocy like this out and tell me that it isn't too late. It's the poll numbers that scare the crap out of me - it's an indication that the majority of people are willing to just let the government walk right over everyone's lives.
First, libertarians can help in such matters by presenting coherent alternatives, in both theory and practice. Second, in relation to the specific issue of kids and secondhand smoke, calling exposure to secondhand smoke "child abuse" is over the top, but beneath the rhetoric is a valid health issue. Adults can walk out of places they find too smoky; kids can't. Since about 1980, I've seen libertarians flush their credibility down the toilet by flatly and loudly refusing even to acknowledge the reality of the majority's concerns on a huge variety of issues. Even when they were right, their Randroid-faux-frontiersman act made them wrong, and their refusal to treat their opponents -- the vast majority of American voters -- as worthy of engagement kept them disengaged.
That mindset has failed, and it's time to adopt a new one: engage with the liberals on matters of common interest, and have an ongoing constructive debate over which/how much regulation is appropriate for which specific issue. It is possible to do this without abandoning or betraying basic libertarian principles.
The problem I have with "libertarians" is really quite simple. Most of the so called "libertarians" I've come into contact with are actually Republicans who don't have the guts to honestly back their president. This Dennis Miller brand of Bullshyte Libertarianism has crippled any validity or viability they ever had with me. Evidence for this is quite simple:
2000 Election: 384,000 Libertarian votes
2004 Election: 397,000 Libertarian votes
Truly not a significant increase when the self avowed opponents of Bush should have been swarming the polls. My apologies to the true libertarians, but given that they apparently only represent .13% of the country's population, odds are good I've only thrown one or two of them to the wolves with the posers.
Good lord, if Dennis Miller is your example of libertarians, no wonder you don't like libertarians. What I find odd about all of these "here's my problem with libertarians" arguments is that they seem all to be purely anecdotal, based on some professed libertarian you know and found absurd. Yet all of you have been readers of this blog for a long time, and frequent commenters, and seem to agree with much of my perspective - yet seem also to have ignored all of that anecdotal evidence of what libertarians are like. It's like the only kinds of libertarians whose existence you acknowledge are the ones you find absurd. I certainly don't think any sane person would accuse me of being a "Republican who don't have the guts to honestly back their president" or that I'm just a member of a "faction of the Republican party". If you're going to look only at anecdotal evidence to form your opinion of a group, you should at least not filter out all of the positive anecdotal evidence.
Raging Bee, I could not agree with you more. As a libertarian, there are plenty of Democratic/liberal/leftist policies that make me queasy (anti-smoking, anti-fast food, affirmative action, to name a few), but how can I not vote against the social conservatism of the religious right? I'm much more upset about the pro-religion, anti-science, "family values" policies of the Republicans than I am about high(er) taxes (plus, as has been mentioned many times, the Republicans aren't exactly for small government anymore).
I'm even registering as a Democrat this year, so I can vote in the primaries for Joe Lieberman's Senate seat. I don't agree with everything Ned Lamont (the challenger) stands for, since he's a pretty straight-up Democrat, and at first I was uncomfortable supporting him for this reason. But then Lieberman said CT women should have no problem driving to a different hospital to get EC, and I immediately stopped feeling uncomfortable. I can deal with affirmative action if it means getting rid of a pro-war social conservative. I'd rather choose the things that are most important to me and do what I can about those issues, since we are in a two-party system and neither party is going to give me everything I want.
Ed,
I agree that Dennis Miller is a bad example of a libertarian, but he's a really good example of what the general public thinks a libertarian is (in my experience, at least). I mean, I know he's not, but he's visible, and he's known for being a libertarian, but he's also known for being more anti-Dem than anti-Repub. I think your average, relatively unengaged citizen thinks libertarians have lots of high-minded ideals and end up selling out to Republicans every time elections roll around, because they care more about their wallet than about all the social liberties they say they value. I'm not saying this is true, but I do think it's a pretty widespread impression people have. You can see it from the comments on this post, and I've seen it plenty in real life too.
And I've even gotten this impression from self-identified libertarians (and I say that as a self-identified libertarian). I've read blogs by libertarians who only, and I mean only, complain about high taxes and corporate regulations, and just don't care at all about creationism/ID, religious establishment, equal rights for homosexuals, the war on drugs, etc etc. I've found it very frustrating and somewhat disenchanting. Anecdotal arguments aren't persuasive, and anyone who reads your blog should have a better perspective, but what about the people who don't? I really believe most Americans are pretty clueless about libertarianism and do think it's just a small, weird, idealistic subset of the Republican party.
I think most Americans are clueless about practically everything. The fact that libertarians are included in everything doesn't come as a surprise to me. But my readers tend to be a lot smarter and better educated than most Americans.
Ed: your point about un-representative anecdotal evidence is valid, but so is nicole's point about libertarians bringing such misconceptions on themselves. I haven't followed libertarian internal politics closely, but I've heard libertarians say some pretty ridiculous and shockingly dishonest things, all the while hogging the mantle of Thomas Jefferson and calling themselves the only real free thinkers on Earth.
Enough such nonsense, and the current complaints about how people don't understand what libertarians are "really" about begin to sound like those old complaints that the latest Communist atrocity didn't really represent "true" Communism.
nicole: the liberal/Democratic policies that make you queasy, also make a lot of liberals queasy. We've been aware for a long time that big-government liberalism isn't the universal cure-all (in policy or in politics) we thought it was in the '60s, and that some of what was necessary a generation or more ago may have gone too far or outlived its usefulness. I'm sure libertarians --smart and sensible ones, at least -- could have a lot to contribute to this debate. More than the Republicans, anyway.
The only thing it takes to be a libertarian is to lecture everyone that they don't know what libertarianism really means. It's the ideology of individualism afterall -- completely different for each and every person. ;)
Sorry I haven't replied sooner, but work gets a little hectic this time of year and Thursdays are a bad day in general (in the classroom straight through).
Ed, you misunderstood my point (easy enough to do). I wasn't using Dennis Miller as an example of a "good libertarian," I was using him as a very public example of a "libertarian" who claimed over and over again he was one yet constantly supported the Bush administration and finally, after two years, admitted that he was a Republican. IMO he was fully of shyte the entire time, hiding behind the "libertarian" lable to distance himself from the administration that he spent years vocally supporting. I've seen, over the last five years, literally hundreds of "libertarians" who honestly seem to have their heads shoved so far up Bush & company's collective butts they're sharing a group collar. Nothing the administration was doing at the time could possibly be questioned, everything they did was right, anyone who questioned it was a liberal weenie, or was told "if you don't like it, leave." Prior to that I ran into an equally large number of "libertarians" who slammed Clinton every chance they got.
I agree, this is anecdotal evidence, but understand that I have only come into contact with a handful of self proclaimed libertarians who haven't fit into these trends/tendencies. I don't know if this is because some people are posing, or if they think they're libertarians and honestly don't recognize their inconsistencies, or what, but the majority I have come into contact with are simply Republicans in libertarian's clothing. Note I did say most, and pointed out that there are roughly 400,000 libertarians who did vote that way, etc. I also said I was sorry to those true Libertarians who got caught up in the "net" of my observations and opinions.
Personally I lean towards moderate socialism. Key industries should be nationalized (health care, water, energy), others should be heavily regulated, including the prices they are able to charge, business practices, etc. The wealthy should be taxed in proportion to their additional opportunities (IE eliminate many of their BS deductions, etc.) Eliminate corporate welfare, stop giving corporations tax breaks for outsourcing jobs, eliminate these offshore accounts (or tax them more). End the 600-800 billion in uncollected corporate/elite taxes that go uncollected everyyear because of loopholes in the law and pressure on the IRS to halt investigations and audits.
As for the "liberal Democrat" issues listed:
1) smoking? Go ahead, burn out your lungs, but don't make me sit there and "enjoy" my meal with your smoke.
2) fast food? Go ahead, eat it, fatten up, you'll be great if we ever have to resort to canibalism.
3) Affirmative action? Yes, it is still necessary. Key is to realize discrimination is still alive and well. Also key is to understand that many of the "abuses" of AA, when traced to their root, are caused by people who were opposed to the program from the beginning and purposely hired/promoted someone unqualified.