Posted on 11/13/2013 5:19:15 AM PST by Kaslin
I didn't know what a libertarian was when I started reporting. I was just another liberal. I knew the Republicans were icky, and Democrats were more like me -- except they didn't care about debt.
I had no idea there was an actual movement of thinking people who want to honor the principles of the Founders -- liberty and limited government. It took me a long time to wake up.
Now more Americans have woken up, say Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie, editors of Reason magazine.
"Poll after poll show you that Americans are much more fiscally conservative than their elected representatives," says Welch. "A majority of Americans thinks that we should balance the budget. Seventy-five percent think that we should not raise the debt ceiling ... Growing majorities -- especially young people -- are more socially tolerant. They think that we should legalize marijuana ... they're in favor of gay marriage."
Gillespie argues that some of the change comes from people seeing how the private sector offers us more options that we like, while government fails.
"The 21st century has been a demonstration project of how Republicans and conservatives screw things up, under the Bush years, and now we have the Obama version -- the liberal Democrat version of screwing everything up ... you go to Amazon.com, you have a good experience and you get all sorts of interesting stuff. When you go to a government website, not so much."
It changes minds, they argue, when people see this is a strong pattern, not just the result of isolated mistakes unique to Obamacare or another specific government project.
But do people realize that it's a strong pattern? I don't think so. I wrote "No, They Can't: Why Government Fails -- But Individuals Succeed" because I worry most Americans instinctively trust central planning. The spontaneous order of the invisible hand is harder to grasp. The invisible hand is ... invisible.
Maybe that's why leftists fear liberty. A sarcastic online video scares people by calling Somalia a "libertarian paradise." (It isn't. Libertarianism assumes private property and rule of law.) One of my Fox colleagues, Bill O'Reilly, calls my libertarian views "desperately wrong" and says "you're living in a world of theory!"
But Gillespie says even people who don't understand the theory at least see what the invisible hand produces. "Where people do things voluntarily and in free markets, everything is getting better, (but] when you go to this old model of command and control, things are terrible." True. But while Gillespie, Welsh and I -- and maybe you readers -- pay attention to that, I suspect that the promises of the central planners will fool most people most of the time.
Politicians fool us with offers of free goodies like cheaper health care and "cures" for social problems, like the War on Drugs. They fool us with their promises to "contain" China, Iran, al-Qaida, etc. and "build democracy" in the Middle East.
If libertarian-leaning politicians express doubt, they may be condemned by others in their own party.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., filibustered until President Obama responded to their questions about drone strikes. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called them "wacko birds."
After some politicians criticized NSA spying, Gov. Chris Christie said, "This strain of libertarianism is a very dangerous thought."
Mainstream conservative pundit Fred Barnes tells me Ron Paul is "deluded" because he wants to shrink the military. Barnes says we're not seeing a new libertarian era, just a libertarian "blip." He points out that even government programs Ronald Reagan railed against are still with us 30 years later -- and suggests that they probably aren't going away.
I'm not optimistic about most people recognizing liberty's benefits. Old politicians -- and old voters collecting Social Security -- may never change their minds. But libertarianism is growing fastest among the young, and groups like Students for Liberty give me hope. These young people certainly know more about liberty than I did at their age.
Maybe they will avoid prior generations' big-government mistakes. Maybe.
John Stossel is pro-abortion. Sad. He thinks Libertarian principles require allowing people to kill babies.
Marijuana Use Takes Toll On Adolescent Brain Function, Research Finds
“Not only are their thinking abilities worse, their brain activation to cognitive tasks is abnormal.
pfftttt... dude, legalize it, regulate it and tax it man.....
response: but isn’t the basis of Libertarianism lower taxes, less government interference in individual decisions?
wait, wha.. legalize it and tax .. wait what was I saying? don’t bogart the spliff...
I have never heard him say that he is pro abortion
Just more people to sit elections out for.
If you do not even have the morals to fight for the weakest among us then you have no business leading anybody. Anybody who thinks killing a child is ok only gets my disgust, not my vote.
“This media climate helps explain why some people call me ‘that conservative on ABC.’ I'm hardly what I would call conservative. I happen to think consenting adults should be able to do just about anything they want. I think prostitution should be permitted. (If quarterbacks and boxers make money with their bodies, why can't a woman make money with hers?) I believe homosexuality is perfectly natural, that the drug war should be ended, that flag-burning and foul language should be tolerated, and most abortion should be legal. This is conservative? Real conservatives should be insulted.”
I have. Almost certainly on Hannity.
He said that his belief in limited government required him to believe that abortion should be legal.
That is so wicked and STUPID, I find it hard to believe that he displays so much intelligence most of the time.
libertarianism... look at Virginia... that is all they have ever been and all that they will ever be.
abortion is the MURDER OF A BABY!
One that an officer related at a meeting recently involved a student dropping a small baggie of marijuana from his pocket as he was walking down a school hallway. The school principal was walking past the student at the time and picked up the pot. He asked the student if it belonged to him. The student immediately admitted it was his and reached out to take it back from the principal.
What struck Krueger and the officer about this incident was the fact that the student didn't seem to realize that there was anything wrong with having the pot or that there would be any disciplinary consequence for it. The officer said the student acted like having marijuana was an ordinary thing and no big deal.
The article used terms like "believe" and had no real facts. This could have been written when I was in high school, back in the 1970's.
All discussion about libertarians devolves into social conservatives whining about gay sex, drugs and abortion. These are spiritual problems, not law enforcement problems. All the above are failures of parenting and religion, and cannot be "fixed" with gestapo tactics like no knock raids and dog murders.
If you do not like legal pot stay out of Colorado.
I believe Stossel takes the position that government needs to butt out of personal healthcare decisions, and all that entails.
I don’t recall ever hearing him take a pro-abortion stand. I recall many times him telling interviewers that the government has no business in the healthcare business.
While I don’t agree with everything on the libertarian agenda, I do admire the minimal-government approach.
Some of the logical conclusions that spring from their agenda include legalization (un-criminalization?) of drugs, cessation of welfare at the FedGov level (and State), taking the feds out of agriculture, education, land ownership (national parks, etc.), and so forth.
There is a lot to like on that agenda.
There are groups of people who vote against what they believe, I know, I worked with many over a 30 plus year period. Union members, most of them with conservative values and thinking, gun owners, hunters and self defense type gun owners. Those to whom abortion was anathema, God fearing, God loving Americans, men and women who hated big spending, wasteful type big government, hellacious taxes on working people, freedom loving folks.
Come election time they voted democrat. I spent 30 plus years telling them they were screwing up and why and how. Some listened, some didn't. I just hope I changed a few minds or at least made them start using the brain that God gave them.
Retired U.A.W. member Graybeard58
I’m willing to allow a sort of libertarianism at the Federal level, with the individual states being allowed to decide issues like pot, gays, etc. This is not because I favor libertarianism, but because that’s how I read the 10th amendment.
That said, most libertarianism today is obsessed entirely with the gay agenda to the exclusion of everything else. Libertarians are too often virulently anti-Christian, and I don’t think they see the obvious distinction between “leave gays alone,” and “you Christians are required to support homosexuality.”
This could have been written when I was in high school, back in the 1970's.
I am sure, considering your paranoia and your warped blaming of religion for homosexuals, drug abuse and abortion.
Would you rather live in a country where abortion is legal, 10% of the population uses marijuana, people engage in all kinds of bizarre sexual behavior and the government seeks to control every aspect of your lives backed by 17 trillion in Chinese debt or live in a country where abortion is legal, 10% of the population uses marijuana, people engage in all kinds of bizarre sexual behavior and the government largely leaves you alone and runs on a small balanced budget?
If you honestly believe you can, at this point eliminate abortion, either legal or illegal and eliminate drug use, legal or illegal and eliminate non-heterosexual behavior, legal or illegal, you have formed your opinion in lieu of the obvious experience of the last forty years.
I wish no one used drugs, killed babies or missed the joys of traditional marriage but the world does not bend to my wishes often.
17 trillion (TRILLION!) in American debt, ping.
The problem young voters have with right vs left, Republican vs. Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal, et. al. is that both ideologies profess to know how best to live and have a will to impose upon others how they should live. Just different sides of the “better at living than you” argument. All the while we are divided on trying to impose our will on others, the elected politicians are robbing us blind.
Leave the judging to your maker.
Actually it is a LACK of religion and poor parenting, both of which are related. I remember an America when every Sunday morning families dressed in their finest went to church. When children had a real mother and father, not a single mom or two mommies. I want that America back.
After 40 years of the war on drugs, drugs are cheaper, more potent, and more readily available. That is a fail. Only a poor parent would allow a kid to have weed. The stuff was everywhere when I was young. I had wonderful parents and avoided it.
As for abortion, only the Supreme Court can change the status quo. A SC nominee chosen for strict adherence to, and belief in the Constitution should acknowledge the right to life, it is in the Declaration of Independence.
Libertarian = Dope smoking Republicans.
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