libertarian (small-l) = people who generally favor free market economic solutions; individual responsibility, both positive and negative; minimum government intervention in personal, private, and business affairs; government restricted to the roles of protecting life, liberty, and property of individuals.
Libertarian (big-L) = a set of nutcases who have taken the above and interpreted it to include anarchy, unlimited access to drugs, totally open borders, and a non-agression foreign policy, and who have little or no hope of being elected.
Republican (big-R) = a group of politicians committed to maintaining the status quo and their own gravy train by huge deficits; unlimited earmark spending; massive growth in government; payoffs to campaign contributors by manipulating the tax code, trade policies, and government contracts; and an interventionist foreign policy to divert attention from the fact that the nation is going bankrupt because of their fiscal largess.
republicans (Small-r) = the legions of myrmidons who follow the Big-Rs simply because of the R after their name, and who lack the willingness or intelligence to question the policies of the Big-Rs, even though they are being played for suckers.
Good, all Loserdopians get out and stop pretending to be conservatives.
Every self described Libertarian I've ever met only cared about one thing which is their right to be a dopehead.
republicans (Small-r) = the legions of myrmidons who follow the Big-Rs simply because of the R after their name, and who lack the willingness or intelligence to question the policies of the Big-Rs, even though they are being played for suckers.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
yeah lets insult every small r republican out there, yeah way to make a case.
Bullsh**
L
Libertarian = A hippie with money.
I once considered myself to be a libertarian but now see myself as more of a conservative independent.
You forgot the Christian Conservative Republicans (Rc) who are the direct opposite of the libertarians. They want the government to intervene in personal, private and business affairs and they want the government to restrict life, liberty, and property of individuals. They believe that government should spend money on what they perceive as social problems.
Oh really? Libertarians are anti-gun control, pro-tax reduction/elimination, anti-welfare state, pro-limited gov't in general. The are HUGE issues, and ones the Left necessarily cannot embrace. Libertarians (small l) who vote Democrat are more than a bit confused.
That is one crock of crap.
The libertarians have never been there for Republicans when they need them. That was a fact that bright candidates like Ronald Reagan always understood. In 1980 he made a great effort to win the support of moderates. The support of the swing voters always wins elections.
There are about 5 or 6 million libertarians in the USA. To get their votes a candidate must sacrifice the votes of 30 million moderates. No candidate with a goal of winning an election would do anything except distance himself from the Libertarians.
Libertarians are libertarians because they see few differences between the two major parties. They are also not very bright. They seem to think that threatening to and in most cases withholding their votes will cause the Republican party to move more in their direction.
What happens when Republicans lose is they draw the very logical conclusion they must be more like the winners. So the Republican party turns to the left in emulation of the winners.
Any candidate with a brain knows that in a two person race the candidate that gets its base, half the moderates and some to the left of center will win.
Since no candidate can depend on libertarians, every candidate that wins has to find a way to appeal to a significant number of voters to the left of center. Republican candidates have to plan on not getting any libertarian votes. If they get them they win in a landslide if they don't then they will win in a close race. If they fail to get a descent majority of moderates they lose.. with or without libertarian support.
You do not have to be void of reality to be a libertarian, but I have never met one who was not.
These guys pull away votes from anarchists, not Republicans.
'Pubbies = squishies who genuflect to the right but mainly want to be graded 'Plays well with others'.
Superficially, the above sounds correct, since there are distinct issues of individual freedom that are championed respectively by both the Right and the Left. It's a false position, though, since while the Left does champion certain freedoms, the underlying leftist philosophy itself is inherently totalitarian, and thus ultimately deadly to individual freedom of all kinds.
There is no underlying philosophy at all that unifies the "Right" as far as I can see, save for a shared distaste for the Left. Even that is not a sure thing.
This essay has caused me to lose a little respect for Bartlett.
No what is a play for suckers is coming here every day screaming your 100% "My way or the Highway" dogmas. All that does is help elect Democrats.
You posted a whine a day and did EVERYTHING you could to make the results Nov 7th happen. Frankly the Conservative movement would be far stronger if all the shoot our own in the back all the time whiners did leave.
There is the door Democrat in everything but name activists. You want Democrats in power so bad, go talk to THEM about your agenda and see what parts of it they are willing to put into law.
Want to help the Conservatives? GET OFF OUR SIDE.
This article sounds suspiciously like just another effort to downplay the effect of conservative dissaffection on the last election and to make some other group seem more important.
The fact is that it's the traditional conservatives who have been lied to and are disillusioned with the phony conservatives in the Republican party.
Speaking for myself:
I can't vote for people on the left because they do not believe in a negative rights framework for personal freedom. For example, they believe in the government recognizing gay marriage, when I believe that the government has no business "licensing" marriage. I do believe that religious traditions are a necessary support for free markets and personal freedom. I have far more in common with conservatives that liberals, and don't mind when people think of me as "conservative".
I am turned off by some policies advocated by the GOP, but I do not view the Dems as a viable alternative.
BTW, I don't understand why every profession of libertarian belief on FR must be met with references to "Loserdopians" and drug use. I suppose that these name-callers agree with the GOP on every issue?
wow, well said.
From the article:
"Basically, libertarians are allied with the right on economic issues and the left on everything else."
No, that's the continuing misperception of kneejerk conservatives. For example, if I think the war on drugs is a failure, that doesn't mean I'm pro drug usage, like many of the Dems. Why some people can't get that simple concept is beyond me.
I take a couple amino acids from the health food store that do wonders for me and I would consider drugs. Conservatives I assume would want to take away that right from me. But they will support the smoking of cigars and drinking of Bud.
Somewhere there is a mental disconnect going on.
Instead we got CFR, Sarbanes-Oxley, No-Child-Left-Behind, amnesty for illegals, massive amounts of pork, etc. etc. If the GOP is going to act like Democrats, let's at least get the real thing.
"But the relationship today seems more deeply strained than any time in the last 30 years, and a divorce may be forthcoming."
Good. Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
Can I pitch in a couple of suitcases?
Wow. I didn't know that libertarians were for:
bigger, more intrusive government
gun-control
affirmative action
expansive government "healthcare"
abortion funding
activist courts and judges
embryonic stem cell research funding
government monopoly schools
Nanny-state control over environmental issues (and everything else)
Social Security
invasive use of eminent domain
etc., etc., etc....
jw
There it is.
"Basically, libertarians are allied with the right on economic issues and the left on everything else."
I don't think this is correct at all. Libertarians only side with the Left definitely on "drug freedom", and possibly also abortion freedom (not clear) and definitely porn freedom.
However, typical leftist !$#@$!# like making everyone wear seat belts and helmets and making kids wear suits of armor when playing is NOT a Libertarian bent.
Those early libertarians may have associated with those on the left -- the right probably didn't want to be around them -- but a lot of early libertarians, like Karl Hess and Murray Rothbard actually came from what one would have to call the right wing.
I think it would be a helpful to discuss whether libertarianism should even be considered a branch of conservatism. Say what you will about the high-minded goals of libertarianism, but my observation of most living breathing self-identified libertarians on this board leads me to conclude that many are souless amoral narcissists who want government out of their faces so they won't have to pay taxes, can indulge in their pot habit, and consort with prostitutes without fear of government interference. Most I've seen here have no sense of civil responsibility, and are down on the concept of civic virtue. They're impractical and selfish, and, frankly, I'm tired of hearing them each election cycle threatening to boycott the Republican candidate. They should make good on their threat and take a hike. We'll muddle through without them.
So go already. They've been threatening this for awhile. As they say in the Nike ads, just do it!
"Basically, libertarians are allied with the right on economic issues and the left on everything else" - author
Hard to recover from such a flawed view, no surprise - this author did not.
(see gun control for example)
"Basically, libertarians are allied with the right on economic issues and the left on everything else" - author
Hard to recover from such a flawed view, no surprise - this author did not.
(see gun control for example)
Libertarians share more with socialists at the philosophical level than is commonly assumed. I read a barfer conversion story on DU the other day about a libertarian reading Zinn and Chomsky and converting to socialism. This can happen more easily than one might think.
Libertarians are like socialists in that they believe people are good, and society makes them bad. Except instead of capitalism, the family, law enforcement, and the military corrupting man, they blame government, the family, law enforcement, and the military for corrupting man.
So on law and order issues, on family issues, and war and peace issues, the libertarians will inevitably find themselves closer to the democrats.
Conservatives and classical liberals reject libertarianism and socialism because they each see man as an imperfect being, and build their respective political philosophies using this assumption. As James Madison put it, if men were angels, no government would be necessary.