Very interesting...
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Posted on 10/04/2009 12:13:44 PM PDT by Josh Painter
A few days ago I downloaded The Betrayal of the American Right by Murray Rothbard from the Online Library of Liberty, which contains this paragraph from the 1991 preface:
At the present time, many conservatives have come to realize that the old feisty, antigovernment spirit of conservatives has been abraded and somehow been transformed into its statist opposite. It is tempting, and, so far as it goes, certainly correct, to put the blame on the Right's embrace of the 1970's of Truman-Humphrey Cold War liberals calling themselves "neoconservatives," and to allow these ex-Trotskyites and ex-Menscheviks not only into the tent but also to take over the show.Now, Rothbard was a hard-core libertarian, but I think this observation has the ring of truth. Rothbard places the ultimate cause of the takeover of conservativism by the neocons to the founding of National Review, a position which I think is guaranteed to start an argument around here.
But it's also true, if not a truism that in order to understand where we are it's important to understand where we've come from.
that made no sense at all. Libertarians don’t win because they present an unpopular vision of politics. How can you possibly be elected if you are saying that you aren’t going to give people things? Liberty doesn’t sell. Many Republicans shout about limited government, but can’t spit out a coherent sentence about why it should be limited. It’s really pretty simple on one level: the government should do those things it can do more efficiently than the market, and leave everything else alone. The parallel to Marxism doesn’t exist.
“Crunchy cons” are also known as “Granola conservatives.” Led by Rod Dreher, they are environmentalists who are mostly socially conservative, but oppose aspects of free market capitalism.
I think of them as former hippies who smoked too much dope and are hallucinating that they really are conservatives.
These people *really* hate Sarah Palin, probably because they are elitists while she is not.
- JP
As a former YAFer I remember the anti-war anti-Reagan draftcard burning Rothbard-led semi-riot at the 1969 YAF convention.
Too self absorbed and arrogant self righteous to actually do the hard work required of managing a functioning Government or being part of a serious political movement, it easier for Libertarians to simply cling to an ideology that is so fundamentally unworkable in the real world that it will never be implemented,. Thus they can cling to their childish notions of "The only good Govt is no Govt" without ever having to live by the systems they postulate.
Thus they can sit on their butts do nothing and whine about how everyone else is doing it wrong with out ever having to do the hard work of coming up with real world solutions to real world problems.
Perfect ideology for self absorbed comfortably middle class males with no responsibilities to anything but their own egos.
Yah. Rothbard had a dalliance with leftism in the 60’s. He subsequently figured it (or them) out.
To post 16 - You’ve omitted how many times were taxes cut during Reagan’s Presidency and by how much. So, does this, or not, make him a significant net reducer of taxes?
The problem is that cafeteria conservatism, just like cafeteria christianity, is a fallacy. You can’t just pick and choose the aspects of conservatism that fit your liefestyle and reject the rest. You either go the whole ten yards or the other side gets the ball.
A conservative belives in:
1. national security
2. fiscal restraint
3. smaller government
4. traditional values
Anyone who refuses to accept all four of those principles isn’t a conservative in my book.
- JP
On the other hand, both genuine Burkean conservatives and genuine J S Mill liberals can support a position of "We don't want bigger government, we want a government that does a few big things and does them right!”
The "Libertines" of your fantasies, if they have to make a choice between big government and big government, they will go for the one that allows personal freedom.
But they would, like actual libertarians, and genuine conservatives, prefer a government not big enough to control everything.
I’m not one to pay much attention to nuances, but I have to agree on the capital (L) libertarian, like capital (D) far leftists both are after their own version of Utopia that can never exist. There has to be federal governance if we’re going to be united States that look after the broader issues. However, hitting the stopping place of proactive central governance rather than central control needs to, at some point, be highly defined.
Personally, I think Sarah Palin is a true conservative Republican and has no time whatsoever for the RINO doctrine. Governance for federal issues and leave the issues of personal lives to the states. I also think that she, like Reagan would not hesitate to stare down the country’s enemies with a strong defense that protects our freedoms. I think she would’ve poured the support into Afghanistan that is needed to get the job done and clean it out. Just like we should’ve done in Iraq instead of piddle footing around for so long before the surge.
Frankly I think the RINO’s were wrong in not being up front with an intention of establishing peace keeping bases in both countries, like we’ve done every country that we’ve assisted to liberate themselves. Neither of these countries has the ability or capacity to continue to fight off the extremist rabid dogs all by themselves.
Thomas Hobbes "During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man." [Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 13]
Thomas Hobbes "[In a state of nature] No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
Which is why I’m a “recovering Libertarian.”
The LP is way too concerned with intellectual purity and way too unconcerned with actually winning elections. It took me a few years in the work force after I graduated from college to figure that out. Then I switched (back) to being a Republican.
Just because “that government is best which governs least” it does not necessarily follow that no government all is a good idea—at least when you’re talking about imperfect, corruptable human beings.
I do think we need to re-open the whole issue of what America’s involvement in the world should be. It’s obvious we can’t go back to the “no entangling alliances” of the Founding Fathers, but I also don’t think we can forever afford or sustain being the world’s only trustworthy policeman, either.
I’m 100% behind an overwhelmingly strong national defense, I still tend to think that the Iraq War was on balance a good idea, and I’d like to see us go after the Taliban and Al Quada much more vigorously (if not ruthlessly) than we have. I think we need to drastically upgrade our human intelligence all around the world.
On the other hand, I’m starting to think that NATO is an idea whose time has come and gone. But I don’t know if the Europeans have the moxie to defend themselves any more. Maybe we should start sending them the bill.
We need to get energy independence ASAP in order to cut our dependencies to the cesspool which is the Middle East.
I think the future for the U.S. is a stable system of trade and security around the Pacific Rim, extending to India, and to South America rather than focused on Europe and the Middle East, which have been our obsessions until now.
I think the rumors of the demise of the U.S. as a superpower are greatly exaggerated—IF we can turn back the Democrats in 2010 and turn out Obama in 2012.
(Dang, I’m wordy today!)
The preamble of the Libertarian platform. Libertarianism is anarchism with a smiley face painted on it.
Which is exactly the kind of rigid ideological test that makes the Libertarians a permanent fringe party.
What I think we need to do is find the lowest common denominator that can build a majority coalition of people who will certainly not agree on everything on your cafeteria list.
My own view is that lowest common denominator is personal liberty combined with personal responsibility. I think the four items in your list are products of that common denominator rather than prior requirements to join the coalition.
As long as you’re voting against Democrats and for electable people who advocate more freedom and personal responsibility, I don’t care too much about why you’re doing it.
Reagan also had to practically rebuild the U.s. armed forces from scratch.
As a result of Carter ‘s policies, our American military was plagued by low morale, low pay, obsolete weaponry and nearly zero maintenance on what hard assets we did have. Key military personnel (Lt’s and Sgt’s) were not reenlisting, and thousands of enlisted men’s families were on food stamps.
Afterthe Vietnam War, the defense industry was much as it had been since World War II. Stores of weapons had been depleted by the war and not replaced. The derfense industry was beginning to develop new technologies such as stealth and two fighter aircraft that would become the finest in the world, the F-15 and the F-16.
Reagan brought such programs back to life with an infusion of cash. Defense peaked at $456.5 billion in 1987 (in projected 2005 dollars), compared with $325.1 billion in 1980 and $339.6 million in 1981. Most of the increase was for procurement and R&D. The procurement budget doubled to $147.3 billion from $71.2 billion.
The liberals were kicking and screaming all the while.
- JP
There’s Libertarians (capital L) and libertarians (little l).
If you’ve read what I’ve posted elsewhere on FR today you will have read that I don’t believe that anarchism will ever work because we are all flawed human beings.
I’m trying to agree with you, MNJohnnie, if only you’ll let me!
No, the four principles are in no way requirements to join a coalition. They are my own opinion of requirements to call one’s self a conservative.
Reagan’s coalition had libertarians in it who didn’t ascribe to the traditional values principle and Democrats who weren’t that worried about the size of government. But they were all weary of the Carter presidency and suffering from a misery index that was way too high.
- JP
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