Posted on 12/12/2006 7:37:39 AM PST by Small-L
For many years, those who consider themselves to be libertarians have been fairly reliable members of the Republican coalition. Although no libertarian would consider himself or herself to be entirely in agreement with either major party, they have historically sided with the GOP. But the relationship today seems more deeply strained than any time in the last 30 years, and a divorce may be forthcoming.
Basically, libertarians are allied with the right on economic issues and the left on everything else. They believe in the free market and freedom of choice in areas such as drugs, and favor a noninterventionist foreign policy. Consequently, someone who is a libertarian could prefer to ally with the right or the left, depending on what set of issues is most important to him or her.
I first became aware of the libertarian philosophy in 1969, when there was a big split in a college-based group called Young Americans for Freedom, which was supposed to be the right-wing alternative to the left's Students for a Democratic Society. The libertarians broke with those who considered themselves traditionalists -- conservatives in the mold of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk.
The problem for the libertarians was that they didn't want to conserve anything. Whereas the conservatives prized order and continuity, the libertarians were radicals favoring change. The traditionalists in YAF viewed the libertarians with horror, like the Jacobins of the French Revolution, who destroyed the existing order without putting anything in its place, leading to a reign of terror.
The libertarians countered by associating themselves with the American revolutionary tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and others. The true conservative, they argued, must defend both the bad and the good in the existing order. But what if there are deep problems in government and society that require change? The conservative traditionalist has little to offer.
In 1969, the key issue was obviously the Vietnam War. The traditionalists supported it, the libertarians opposed it. But drugs were also an important issue dividing the groups. Libertarians believe people have the right to do what they want with their own bodies, even if they end up hurting themselves in the process. Traditionalists take a more Puritanical approach, believing that people must be protected against their own folly.
Consequently, when I first became acquainted with libertarianism, most libertarians tended to associate with those on the left, where they had more in common. But with the end of the Vietnam War and the huge rise of inflation and other economic problems in the 1970s, libertarians mostly tended to drift rightward.
In the 1970s, the left was clueless about how to fix the economy. They had no idea what was causing inflation and insisted on dealing instead with its symptoms through wage and price controls. The left at that time was also highly sympathetic to socialism and often favor nationalization of businesses like the Penn Central Railroad when bankruptcy threatened.
The right at least understood that excessive money growth by the Federal Reserve caused inflation, and that socialism and nationalization were crazy. So most libertarians moved into the Republican Party, which then had leaders like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who spoke their language and had libertarian sympathies.
With the passing of the older generation of Republican leaders who were at least sympathetic to the libertarian message, a new generation of Puritans have taken over the party. They seem to want nothing more than to impose Draconian new laws against drugs, gambling, pornography and other alleged vices. The new Republican Puritans don't trust people or believe that they have the right to do as they please as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. They want the government to impose itself on peoples' lives and deny them freedom of choice.
At the same time, the Iraq War has aroused the isolationist impulse among libertarians. Only a tiny number of them supported the war in the first place, and they have all now recanted. Moreover, Republicans have lost whatever credibility they once had on economics by indulging in an orgy spending and corruption, and by becoming very unreliable allies on issues such as free trade and government regulation of the economy.
Consequently, many libertarians are drifting back once again to the left, where they find more compatible allies on some of the key issues of the day. And a few on the left are reaching out to libertarians, or at least trying to open a dialogue where there really hasn't been one for a long time.
Libertarians probably don't represent more than 10 percent of the electorate at most and are easy for political consultants to ignore. But they are represented in much larger percentages among opinion leaders and thus have influence disproportionate to their numbers. Republicans will miss them if they leave the party en masse.
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.
"At least you can admit you don't mind having RATS in control. You got your wish, Enjoy!"
Don't be an ass. It wasn't my wish-- it was the farthest from. My wish is to not have to ever stoop to voting for crumbs when we should be feasting. That should be your wish too and I'm sure it is.
But you don't get to the feast by saying that you'll accept the crumbs. Get it?
Hopefully, two years of Pelosi and friends will be a worthy sacrifice, IF the republican party learns from it's mistakes in the Bush family.
There's an awful lot of Republicans who should also stop pretending to be conservatives.
Okay... I often refer to myself as leaning libertarian, but I bathe, and I tihnk anarchy is a bad idea. So what label would you prefer I take, since I believe in smaller government, as defined by the Constitution at least 100 years ago (before the 16th, and 17th Amendments were passed by the Socialist party faithful) ?
"Hopefully, two years of Pelosi and friends will be a worthy sacrifice"
Since we got no takers, or even anyone to argue with my assertion in the beginning, I assume republicanism must be as I described:
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.
I think I'll chose to remain a Small-l, and trying to effect changes within the party. I note that some of the vitriol from the R-bots seemed to die down near the end--perhaps our message is making someone think.
Then tell Bush and Senator what's his ass from Kansas, the main man for anti-abortion in the Senate, to quit sending American tax dollars to fight AIDS in Africa and stay the hell out of Darfur. If the left is so upset over Darfur why dont they buy a gun and fly to Africa and save their brothers themselves rather than look to someone else to do it for them.
Also tell them to stay out of family decisions on life and death (ala Schaivo). Other than the war in Iraq, I doubt anything led to more Republican loses this year in the election than GOP meddling in the Schaivo case.
"They believe that government should spend money on what they perceive as social problems."
The curtain that Ashcroft used to cover the statue of a naked female probably did not cost too much. ;-)
Small r republican with libertarian leanings here, saying again that if the Republican party does not unite around what we have in common, we will have Hillary in 08 (maybe with Barry Obama aka Barak Obama as VP).
Would you advise someone to read the Republican Party platform to learn what a republic is
nice..very nice :)
What stick do you use against your party to correct it's mistakes?
Interesting view from a FReeper that has only two links on his/her profile page and one of them is to The Objectivist Center, the Ayn Rand site that is perhaps the mother of all libertarian thinking. Do you carry the link because you detest the Objectivist view, or because you're a "dopehead" in hiding?
Federalist.
The runner-up might be the border fence, which Bush oh-so-reluctantly signed. But now that we don't control congress, you can kiss that one goodbye.
it would've been the same if the republicans had won, they were set up to posture 'till the elections were over then you would have gotten amnesty anyway and they would do as they always do- count on the voter to forget over the next two years
Heh heh. Maybe you should read up on the history of the 1980s. Reagan never said he would vote for "no new taxes", though he did advocate for tax cuts. Reagan did get a big tax cut through Congress in 1981, then turned around and signed a huge tax increase in 1982. The 1986 Tax Reform Act simplified taxation quite a bit, and although it was meant to be revenue neutral, it did result in tax increases for people taxing deductions for credit card interest and auto loans, etc.
As far as vetoing big-government legislation goes, why did Reagan sign the bill that "saved" (i.e. delayed reckoning for 25 more years) Social Security and gave us all a 13% flat tax taken straight from our paychecks? And the war on drugs was a big-government program, too.
This said, he accomplished great things, among them defeating communism and bringing the US economy back temporarily from the collectivist brink, but the inertia of ever-expanding government proved too powerful even for Reagan to stop. Reagan never advocated, as Goldwater did, making Social Security voluntary or selling off the TVA. As recently as 1996, the GOP platform asserted that the Department of Education and the Small Business Administration should be abolished- but not any more. Bush I advocated abolishing the federal flood insurance program - could any mainstream politician ever advocate for this again? And the fight against PBS went down in flames when Big Bird testified before Congress during Bill Clinton's successful takedown of Newt Gingrich's program of government downsizing.
I do think conservatives are on "my side"- even if I disagree on some issues. Though, we, together, are just fighting rear guard action- an ultimately futile though worthy fight against the demagogue statists and radical levelers. Though I bitterly resist saying it, we will lose in the end, count on it.
Well, we have a fundamental difference in philosophy regarding how government works. My philosophy tells me that the weasels in the government respond to one thing: power. Threaten to (or actually) take that away and you get change.
Your philosophy tells you that if you write a letter to your congressman or senator, assuming they are a republican (not my case in the great state of California), they will listen attentively and change because they respect your opinion.
How's that working for you?
I will tell you there's a third way-- support candidates that actually give a damn and are true conservatives with your cash. I have supported many republicans that don't even represent my state or district, but I will never give to the Republican party.
I can't speak for all libertarians, but I will say that you and I share a lot more in common than not. I was not responsible for the loss in November as nothing was even in play in my state-- and I voted in a way that most folks around here would have heartily approved of.
But that may not always be the case. My vote is a silver bullet (so is yours).
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.
I don't think so.
"they will listen attentively and change because they respect your opinion.
How's that working for you?"
Believe it or not, it works very well for me.
So basically the Republican Party got in the shape it's in now by listening to you?
Sure. That was it.
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